ANK Red Cat 1 Prologue Whiskers
by LoveyouHateyou
Summary: How Riki might have met Guy. How Iason might have gotten Riki. Where Katze might have come from, and how it all could have connected – a play with options. For the Russian fans who inspired this story.
1. Chapter 1

**ANK – Red Cat Prologue - Whiskers**

**Fandom:** Ai No Kusabi  
**Disclaimer:** The characters in this story are not mine. This story is not for profit.  
**Rating:** M  
**Warnings:** Male/male affection, foul language  
**Characters:** Iason, Riki, Guy, Raoul, Katze  
**Summary:** How Iason finds Katze. How Riki meets Guy. How it all connects – a play with options, some gained, some lost.  
**Note: **Disclaimer, rating, warnings valid for all chapters of this story.

Thanks to the Russian fans who inspired this story with their questions.

xxx

The slums of the city state of Amoi embrace the gleaming city of Tanagura, along with its blazing amusement district and business quarters. They ring the capital like a belt that has grown too tight. There is no fading of light-shimmering streets into pleasing dusk – the change is sudden, the drop into a black abyss, the hungry throat of a monster. The streetlights in Ceres have been broken a long time ago, electricity is rationed to peak hours, the reek of cheap oil generators lies heavy in the air. Running water is a luxury and street hydrants are serving as makeshift pumps. The canalisation is clogged up, rubbish dumps are not emptied, and the cracked tarmac streets are thick with filth and vermin. Yellow dust is everywhere, drifting in from the parched plains further out, suffocating, blinding, and disease is rife in a place where houses are caving in and every possible space has been built over with shacks and shanties. Even the air is dirty, soaked with the stink of poverty.

A small group of young men on heavy bikes zooms towards a small forecourt, the only one in sight, near one of the dirty clubs that dot Ceres streets – places of last resort, for those who cannot afford the pleasures of the Midas quarters, let alone the opulence of Apatia. The gang clusters up around the only pump that works. They make their engines roar and fill the place with exhaust fumes and the smell of burning rubber, before switching them off so they can refuel. They chat and argue and talk about the best grass and the best lay. A darkhaired youth shouts the others down, cracking dirty jokes while he passes the fuel nozzle around. They shuffle about, two of them drag their patched and battered machines onto their sidestands. The youth turns away and lights up, the others sputter and yell at him. He laughs, teeth gleaming white, eyes shining black in a dark face, shaded by wild black hair.

From the concrete-and-corrugated metal shack that doubles as a garage and cashier's kiosk steps a man, not much older than the bunch of bikers, but his lean, tall frame has already broadened and filled out. He wipes his oily hands on a rag, then against his greasy grey overall.

"Take that fag elsewhere," he says.

"Like where?" the youth challenges, blowing a stream of smoke towards him. Sizing him up provocatively – lean pale features, copper-brown hair tied back in a ratty ponytail, a trim body.

The others snigger, screw the caps back on their fuel barrels and haul their machines away from the pump.

Squaring his shoulders, the man steps between the bikes. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, baring oil-smudged, sinewy underarms. Nobody shifts for him, he gets shoved and elbowed tentatively, but they let him through when he reaches into the unbuttoned front of his overall and they can see the butt of a handgun in a shoulderholster.

The youth folds his arms, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, his eyes hooded as he watches, a small smirk on his lips.

"Like," the man says, holding his gaze with sharp grey-blue eyes, "up your ass."

"Whoa!" the youth whoops, rolling his eyes. His mates laugh and whistle. "Look who's talking... who IS talking here?"

"Guy," the man says, anger heating his tone. "Now pay and piss off, or I'll blacklist you idiots."

The youth huffs. "Oh yeah? Man, that's hot shit, baby. I didn't realise you were on someone's payroll."

Guy's cheeks are reddening. "I'm not, and I'll keep it that way, bigmouth. Now get lost."

There is a small pause, shifting hands, groping for knives, steelknuckles, wifebeaters. The young men hold back, ready to beat Guy to a pulp but still just watching, pulling faces behind his back. The youth steps closer. Guy's fingers tighten around the gun but he doesn't pull it. His gaze darts to the youth's hands, scan his body, then meet his eyes again. The pause grows too long, too tense. The youth shifts, slackens into a hipshot posture, chin tilted up, eyes growing hazy, his smile languid as he lets his cigarette-equipped hand slide down his throat, chest and stomach, pausing over the clasp of his belt. He hooks his thumb into the waistband of his jeans. The top button, poking out above the clasp, is open.

"Wow," the youth says, his voice dropping to a husky drawl. "So you're all alone..."

Guy swallows. Tiny beads of sweat gather on his upper lip. He stretches out one hand, palm up, and jerks his head towards the street. "Pay," he grinds out. "And go."

"Okay." The cigarette drops.

Guy jumps. Hastily he stomps on the glowing butt. He is distracted, and the dark youth catches him so suddenly that he can't sway. It is a cloying, bitter, lingering kiss, flavoured with pot and beer, wet with tongue and hunger. The gun, Guy's knuckles, wedged hard between their chests. The young man's arms firm, his fingers strong as he claws into the fabric of Guy's clothes, gathering folds in the small of his back, tightening it across his front. Guy feels as if he should fight, hit him, shake him off. He doesn't. Stupefied, perhaps by the reek of weed that oozes from the youth's hair and skin. Or surprised by the strength of his grip. Or-

"I'll be back tonight," the youth laughs quietly into Guy's mouth when they run out of breath. "I'll fuck you stupid."

Guy yanks back, his face flushing deep red, his eyes blazing. His ponytail is mussed, a few strands fall into his distorted face. "You-"

"Riki," the youth smiles. He lets go of Guy's clothes and stretches out his hand. No glove. Bare, rough skin; cracked fingernails with black rims. "C'mon. How often have we filled up here? Do I really have to blow this shit up before you look at me?"

xxx

The twin moons are waning in the purplish sky over Amoi. Tanagura is as restless as ever, its glittering glamour broadly lined by the crimson glare of the pleasure quarters, and plunging into the darkness of the slums in the distance.

Behind a glass desk, large but almost lost in the spacious room, a tall man in the uniform of a high Elite offical leans back in his chair. His hair, long and smooth, frames a strong-boned face with perfect features and pale blue eyes under whiteblond brows. His hands, clad in white gloves, lie flat on the table.

"Raoul, my friend." His voice is deep and quiet, as if he was accustomed to be listened to. "Would you be able to provide me with a pedigree for each of our inventory items?"

By the glasswall that closes the room off against the city, another man turns to face him. The same perfection, his hair just as long, waves of faded gold, his eyes a clear green. He folds his arms. "Our records are seamless, including the files for our purchased merchandise and our patent files. You know this. So... yes, it would be possible, but why this question?"

"The latest batch we bought... What went wrong?"

"The shipment was flawed, so I had it sent back and witheld payment."

"Thorough. It was my order, was it not?"

Raoul's lips thin. "Yes. But Iason-"

"How about past batches?"

Concern and suspicion creep into the green gaze. "What is this about? The records are available of course, but I am supposed to provide a reason for drawing old files, and I will have to account for work time and for granting additional access privileges to the archive staff-"

"I'll do it myself." Iason smiles faintly into the small pause between them. It has weight and substance, and Iason doesn't try to dispel it.

"You want to trawl through thousands of records alone?"

"You might have asked whether I know what to look for."

Raoul inclines his head. "I apologise. But if you are trying to track an escaped-"

"What happens," Iason interrupts, his voice calm and cool - a deep, even current that seeped into Raoul and fills him until he can feel it, TOUCH it, in every fibre of his body, "If one of us breaks our Mother's laws?"

A bloom of pink slowly colours Raoul's pale skin. "It never happens."

"In theory. I'm merely curious."

Raoul shakes his head. His blond hair swishes languidly over the white wool of his office suit. "Why waste your time with it? It's unimportant. Elite don't break Jupiter's laws."

Iason rises and joins Raoul by the panorama window. "Beautiful, is it not?" he says, looking through Raoul's reflection at the city at their feet. Deep below, the streets are lined by countless lights, marking out the arteries of traffic like a fuzzy star that cuts through the flesh of Amoi with its rays.

Raoul glances at Iason's face in the dark glass. He doesn't answer.

Iason's hand touches the small of Raoul's back and stays there for the fraction of a moment before falling away, and Iason turns back to his desk. "You are right," he says over his shoulder. "But I like detail. Let me have the documentation of that flawed shipment; I will work through it immediately so that you won't suffer any delays in processing this matter."

xxx


	2. Chapter 2

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.**

xxx

Guy locks up the pump – breaking the lock means wrecking the nozzle, it would be pointless. He goes to take a shower. A section of the garage is partitioned off, that's where he has his bed, a small electric cooker, and a toilet and shower stall covered in cracked white tiles. An old, flecky mirror, missing a corner, is riveted to the wall above the toilet bowl. Guy washes down with cheap soap and a bucket of cold water while he heats up some more in a kettle. The place is his own, and he is proud of it, of the sense of freedom it gives him.

When the hot water is ready, he puts the bucket on the lid of the toilet. He shaves carefully and washes his hair. He nearly jumps when he looks up to see Riki's reflection in the mirror. Riki is chewing gum, a lopsided grin on his face. He looks a bit dopey, his eyes narrow and watery, his posture slack, hands in pockets, shoulders slouched.

The handgun lies on top of the pile of dirty clothes – by Riki's booted feet. Guy covers his middle and turns, his eyes wary. "How did you get in here?"

"Hi beautiful," Riki says, sizing up Guy openly, his gaze all but licking down the faint trail of hair that runs from Guy's navel to his groin. "So you really are a fox, top 'n bottom... wow."

Guy reddens, the pink hue fanning out over his neck and chest. "Get lost."

"Yeah, yeah, you said that earlier." Riki takes a step towards him.

Guy leans back against the cold tiles. His copper-brown hair, rinsed and slicked back from his face, lies in dark wet coils against his neck and shoulders. "I said-"

"Okay," Riki cuts in. "I heard you." Another step, and he can brace his arms to either side of Guy. "But I like redheads."

Guy can feel Riki's warmth. It drives goosebumps over his skin. Riki's eyes hold his gaze, and Guy knows he'll give in. He's hungry for touch, and Riki gives it to him. His hands are everything Guy has imagined them to be – rough, scratchy, greedy as they slide up firmly from his thighs, over his flanks, to his upper arms.

"Smooth," Riki murmurs, his lids drooping as he leans in. "Like a blondie's ass."

Guy swallows hard. Surprised and embarrassed that his body doesn't react as quickly as expected, panic pouncing at him and making his heart race. Riki's weight is growing against him, pressing him back gently as Riki's fingers tangle in his hair and cup the back of his neck. Holding him still while Riki breathes in deeply to soak up his scent of soap and cleanliness.

"I don't do random fucks," Guy tries, still covering himself. It makes him flustered to feel Riki's hard middle press against the back of his hand, rub over his knuckles in a slow, rhythmic motion. Heat, pressure, the loneliness of long nights and drab, work-eat-sleep days... Guy feels his resolve swirl, making him dizzy.

"You smell good," Riki says, his breath touching Guy's ear, and then his lips move against Guy's cheek, "Want a ride?" Without waiting, he bends to lightly bite Guy's nipples, then he slides lower, settling his knees to either side of Guy's bare feet on the wet concrete floor, and takes him in. Guy claws his hands into Riki's hair and lets his head thud back. He didn't know he could make sounds like he does - breathless, needy - while Riki is bringing him back to life down there until he can't hold back any longer. Guy tries to pull away, but Riki holds him firmly until it's all over, and Guy sags back, a mix of anger, disgust and sadness whirling up inside him as he covers his groin with his hands again.

"Okay, now piss off," he rasps, still out of breath.

Riki looks up at him. "I brought my bike. Wanna _come_?"

The way he says 'come' makes Guy sweat. Without a word, he stalks past Riki to get fresh clothes. A little later, Riki makes his bike roar and paint a stinking black fan of tyre-marks on the forecourt as he revs the engine and works the clutch, spinning the bike in a stationary wheelie. The noise, drowning out the din of passing traffic, is unnerving Guy, and he tells himself that's the reason why he gives in. Riki flashes him a wide grin as he watches Guy lock up his shack, and pauses his show so that Guy can climb onto the pillion. The seat is broad and comfortable, the bike seems to be rearing to go, like a living thing between their legs. Guy leans back, reaching for the steelbar behind the seat to steady himself. Riki makes the bike lunge forward. Guy almost falls off as he is yanked back, and Riki grabs his arm and drags him closer, putting Guy's hand on his waist.

"Hang on tight," Riki yells as he swerves out into the sparse traffic with a flourish.

And Guy, breathless with tension and the warmth of Riki's body, cautiously tightens his hold.

xxx

The sun is dropping behind the horizon in a dusky haze of red and orange when the ruins of the old station embrace them with silence. The glow of summer, the hum of the city in the distance don't reach the bowels of Dana Bahn. Riki has cut the engine and lets the bike roll on grinding tyres down the gentle incline of the entrance. The giant gate that has withstood days of shelling by Amoi's crack troops is pulled up, frozen against the massive frame of the hoisting mechanism, crusted with dirt and rust. Yellow dust has settled in undisturbed layers on the concrete walls and the tiled floor, and tumbleweeds have blown in, but inside it's still and cool, like a grave. The emtpy hallways are lit by dayglow-strips along the walls and the uncut emergency lights, bathing the place in a pallid white sheen. Some of the lights flicker, and their brightness is dulled by a layer of dust and dead insects at the bottom of their frosted plastic casings.

Riki parks his machine behind the first bend from the entrance. Guy climbs off the pillion, Riki swings his leg over the fuel barrel and slides off. He laughs when he sees Guy's apprehensive face. "What, you believe the old stories?"

"No," Guy snaps, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He has polished his boots and dressed up, with a neat blue shirt that's almost new, and a brown leather jacket he's taken instead of money for fuel from someone. He's never worn it before because there's been no opportunity, and he doesn't quite feel like himself in it.

Riki takes his hand. It's a surprisingly gentle gesture even if his grip is firm and his fingers hard from work. "C'mon," he says, smiling at Guy. "We can go for a walk, can't we? You can walk down here for hours..." A small pause, then he lets go and wanders off, ahead into the dusty gloom of the old ruins.

Guy pulls up his shoulders, before taking a deep breath and following more slowly.

Their steps echo in the corridors that are still intact. Endless escalators, reaching three, four storeys underground, their mechanisms still, the metal steps clanging under Riki's and Guy's boots. Bits of rubbish - ticket stubs, scraps of flyers, yellowed newspaper pages - crunch on the ground. Shafts of dusky light and the fading heat of the day where the roof has been blasted off by an explosion that's torn apart the central section of the station. Signs on the walls – Entrance, Exit, No Pedestrians, Caution High Voltage – and lightboxes with station names hanging from the ceiling – Midas First, Inner District, Outer Ceres. A sharp drop where the bed of rusty tracks borders the platform.

Riki pauses, turning to Guy. "See that?" He nods at the black mouth of a tunnel. "Wonder where that goes... You think that some of them managed to get away?"

Guy shrugs. "No idea. It was a stupid thing, anyway."

"Why?"

"Because there was no way they could have won," Guy says, uncomfortably. "A few hundred men with guns against the Midas police..."

"Military," Riki says. "They brought in the military."

"Whatever." Guy folds his arms. "The whole idea was bullshit. Pets aren't people."

"True." Riki shrugs, pulls out his cigarettes and lights up. He strolls off, and Guy – having lost his sense of direction in the maze – follows. They are making their way back upstairs, but it's a different set of corridors, lower and narrower, with a few doors on one side and a wall covered in graffiti and adverts on the other. The colours on the prints look fresh, as if they'd been pasted on to the concrete only recently, but when Guy curiously rubs over the corner of an old film poster, it crumbles to dust. With an odd twinge of disgust, he wipes his hand on his jeans and walks after Riki, who steps through one of the doors.

Guy nearly bumps into him, and finds himself caught in Riki's embrace. Riki's kiss tastes of smoke, a bit of engine oil, a little salty. It is hungry, almost desperate, but his lips are soft and his touch is so tender, it makes Guy's knees weak.

"Please," Riki breathes, and all mockery is gone from his voice, his expression. "Please let me..."

The room looks like an office, lit by diffuse white light that seems to come from inside the walls, with a desk by the door and a cot against one wall. Dusty papers and a few old pens are strewn across the floor.

Guy meets Riki's gaze, liquid black melting right into him, making him shake with longing. He finds it easy to give in, to be swept away by Riki's energy and enthusiasm. Riki knows what he's doing, and Guy wants it, and for a while that's all that matters.

When they're through, Guy half expects Riki to get up and dress, and he's bracing himself. Instead, Riki lingers, his arms wrapped around Guy's shoulders, his face in Guy's hair that he has pulled free of the elastic band. They're both naked, and the coolness of the room makes them shiver a little.

"Jesus," Riki mumbles as he slips free with a wet plop. "I'm sorry..."

"It's okay." Guy gently ruffles Riki's hair. "What's it to you, anyway?"

Riki holds him a bit tighter. "Dunno... I like you, is all. You weren't after my ass like... ah, whatever. Man, I really thought I'd have to torch your place so you'd take a hint."

Guy huffs. "Maybe I didn't want to."

"Right." Riki sounds a bit wounded.

"And now?"

Riki shifts until they lie side by side, but he still keeps his arms round Guy. "I still like you."

Guy frowns. "Wow."

Riki gives him a slow smile and a saucy wink. "I'll do it again... if you want."

A tiny smirk tugs at Guy's lips. "Now?"

Riki blushes, suddenly and deeply beneath his dark complexion. "Oh, c'mon..."

Guy props himself up on one elbow. He glances at the grey floor where they have dropped their clothes, his gun, Riki's smokes. The floor and the scattered papers are flooded with brown stains, darker at the edges. A feeling of nausea clutches at Guy's stomach. "Looks like blood. Lots of it."

Riki lets his hands wander, caressing Guy's pale chest, brushing over his nipples that respond by firming up. Riki swallows and catches his breath, goosebumps rising on his arms. He clears his throat. "Couple of halls downstairs, there's more, but I've never found any bodies. Weird, isn't it?"

"You come here often?"

Riki regards Guy in silence for a few moments, his gaze clear now and a bit calculating, a faint smile playing over his lips. "Sometimes. They say it's full of ghosts. I don't mind. And you?"

"I don't like this place. It feels..." _Alive_ seems a stupid thing to say.

"Yeah," Riki says as if he'd read Guy's thoughts. He shuffles to sit. "You coming back with me?" And adds hastily, "I got my own place, you know. In Ceres. Not far from yours."

Guy pushes himself up and bends to gather their clothes. "I need to get back to the garage." He can still feel what he and Riki have done, and it drives a shiver down his spine.

Riki catches him from behind when he's half-dressed. He buries his face in Guy's long hair and links his hands over Guy's chest. "I really, really like you," he murmurs, pressing firmly before his embrace loosens up again, changing into something completely different. Something achingly sweet, like hope against better judgement and longing against reason.

A wave of heat rushes through Guy, making him still until the burning has reached his fingertips and tingles through every fibre of his body. His mouth goes dry, and his throat feels narrow, air running through it in a thick, hot stream that fills his lungs and makes his heart pound like a jackhammer. He hasn't felt like this in a long time.

Alive.

He tries to speak, has to try again before he can make more than a squeaky sound. "You mean that?" he manages, his voice small and scratchy.

Riki rests his chin on Guy's shoulder and closes his eyes. "I do."

xxx


	3. Chapter 3

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.**

xxx

The door hisses shut behind Raoul. Iason stays by the panorama window, watching the city. From up here, the top of the monumental pyramid of Eos that towers over Tanagura as a symbol of the shining power of the Elite, the city appears to float on a lake of dusk. The last light of the day is melting away in hues of blue and purple. In the distance, the black splotch of Dana Bahn, embraced by the desert that in the fading light is grey. High up in the dark sky, a lonely star, blurred and unsteady. The giant crescents of the twin moons start rising over the horizon, casting a pale glow without shadows over the plains that surround the city.

Iason doesn't move when he hears soft steps approach, and then a young man joins him, clutching a bottle in one hand, a glass in his other.

"Hi," the young man says, and only then Iason turns to face him. A smile curves his lips as he takes in what he sees – bare feet, a tall, wiry body with an angular frame, clad in loose black drawstrings and a black vest. Short red hair framing regular features, pale skin, slanted eyes that shimmer dark yellow in the failing light.

"Katze," Iason says, "I thought you were asleep."

"You know I wasn't. You and your late meetings. Besides, it's easier working in the evenings. It's quiet around here because they're all out watching their toys screw."

"It was important," Iason says, ignoring the broadside.

"Sure." Katze stares down at the city, and beyond it's glittering edge, into the darkness of Ceres. "It's driving me crazy," he says, "being cooped up like this..."

Iason takes the bottle and pours some red wine. He drinks, then holds the glass out to Katze. "Aren't you glad to be here? That place..."

Katze shakes his head, and Iason sets the glass and the bottle down on the floor.

"I was fine," Katze says. "The orphanage wasn't great, but I was someone. I'm nothing here."

"You were a little thug, bullying everyone else, including your boss." There is a strange note in Iason's voice, but Katze can't figure out what it means. It irritates him. "Blackmail," Iason carries on, "falsifying identity records, impersonating an Elite... Your looks... You were trespassing, stepping on too many toes, and you didn't have the connections to carry it through. Sooner or later, you'd have met a sorry end. Probably sooner. Here... here you are mine."

"I'm nobody's property," Katze shoots back, words like daggers as he hisses them out.

Iason cups his neck, his grip powerful and unyielding. "I hate long days," he murmurs as he pulls Katze into a kiss.

The redhead, breathless and seething with things unsaid, deflates. When Iason lets go, Katze sits down on the floor by the window and starts drinking, refilling the glass as soon as it's drained.

Iason settles next to him. "Why don't you ask what it was about?"

Katze stares out into the deepening dusk, littered with lights and suffused with the orange glow of smog that grows thicker at night until it lies like a bowl over the city. "Because it doesn't matter."

"When I found you, you were desperate to find out..."

"That's bullshit, and you know it."

"How long ago is that now? I've kept my promise, have I not?"

"What do you want, Iason? I've tried to figure it out, but..."

Iason touches Katze's arm. "You don't make sense."

Katze slants him a golden glance and a half-smile. "That old bastard... at the orphanage, he sold kids to people like you. Told us we'd have an easy life, all the stuff we'd never dreamt of having. Perhaps he even meant it. Some of us thought it was okay to lose a few bits for that."

"You didn't." Iason leans closer, wrapping his arm around Katze's waist. "But you wanted to be here."

"I wanted to be with _you_."

"What's the difference? I am this place."

"Are you? Then are they all screwing their fake inventory?"

Iason frowns. "If you hadn't allowed me-"

"If you hadn't asked," Katze snaps. "You even said please. What was it, an experiment? The closest you'd get to fuck an Elite? I bet you didn't tell Raoul about it. You know how they look at me here?"

"Yes."

"And it doesn't make a difference to you. Sure, I get it." Katze doesn't bother hiding his bitterness. "Raoul, he hates my guts. He's jealous."

Iason shakes his head. "That would mean he feels something that Elite don't have. And he doesn't know about your... condition. No, you're wrong."

"What do _you_ know about it? I'm right, and he's got the idea that something's fishy here. Sooner or later, he'll find out. Then what? What about me?"

"And me?"

Katze sniffs. "You'll be okay. You people always are. Me, I'm not so sure."

"Thank you for your concern."

"Ah, Iason. I know why I'm here, but... I find it harder than I thought."

Iason touches Katze's cheek with his lips. "Why are you here?"

Katze, after a heartbeat of hesitation, turns his head to meet Iason's kiss with his own. "Because," he rasps softly, "I love you." He puts the bottle down and wraps his arm around Iason's neck. "You got no clue, do you? Love." He huffs, a half-smile crossing his lips. "I must be stupid..."

Iason pushes him down on his back and looms over him, staring into those deep yellow eyes with the expression he has, Katze thinks, in moments like this – an air of bewilderment, curiosity and melancholy. It is a strange mix, and Katze does what he always does. He pulls Iason close and wraps him into everything he feels for him.

xxx

Raoul appears early the next morning. Shunning the option of transferring the files Iason has requested via a secure connection, he enters the work-apartment and settles by the desk, on a chair opposite Iason's, and sets the wallet with holodisks onto the glass table. He watches the moons wane and the first pale light of morning tint the sky with hues of gold and green. The glamour of Tanagura seems paltry in comparison, a garish neon veil hiding unspeakable things...

He shakes his head and rises the moment Iason steps through the door that leads to his bedroom. Raoul watches him close the top button of his office uniform. Steely perfection restored.

Iason smiles. "Good morning, my friend."

"Good morning," Raoul replies, not hiding the trace of discomfort in his tone.

Iason settles behind his desk and orders coffee through the intercom.

Raoul stays on his feet. "The documentation you asked for. I scanned every specimen. Two of them had falsified genetic imprints – the quality of their material was substandard."

Iason slides one of the disks into a slot at the side of his computer screen. "How so?"

"How the trader tried to cheat? Or what kind of material was used?"

"You sound upset." Iason glances up at Raoul who tries his best to look unruffled but fails, just enough for Iason to spot the signs.

"They tried to use Elite imprints. It's illegal, it's idiotic, they had to know that they'd be caught. We control the patents, Jupiter controls our... replication. What they did is outrageous; that kind of trade needs to be stopped."

"So we will stop them." Iason pauses when the door slides open and a brown-haired youth in plain white clothes appears to serve the coffee for him and Raoul. He hesitates, waiting for permission. Iason leans back. "Hurry up, Daryl."

The youth sets the tray on the desk and withdraws in silence.

Iason's gaze trails after him and lingers on the door for a few seconds before returning to Raoul, curiously. "So why were you delaying?"

Raoul's lips thin. "I didn't think it was necessary to bother you. I was ready to take the appropriate measures." They both know that he's been walking the line between decisive action and breaking the limits of his authority; he would have had time to inform Iason but he's been selective, and now...

"How long have we known one another?" Iason asks, his voice quiet, almost soft. A low, soothing monotone.

Raoul draws a deep breath to gain time and concentrate. "Iason, may I be frank?"

Iason nods at the chair. "Sit. Please." It is an order, and Raoul complies.

"This inventory item you keep..."

"Katze," Iason supplies evenly.

Raoul purses his lips. He is beautiful, the picture of perfection, Iason thinks as he keeps watching, trying to read in those vivid green eyes that carefully avoid him.

"Yes," Raoul admits unwillingly. "It has been in your possession for a long time."

Iason takes his cup and leans back to drink slowly. The silence is thick and unpleasant, and Raoul breaks it quickly.

"It is causing rumours. It is well overdue for replacement. It is also a source of confusion because it looks as if its imprint had been tampered with. That is sullying my reputation, but I have to admit, it appears... unlike the class it has been sourced from."

"You mean, he looks like one of us. An Elite."

Raoul, his face reddening fiercely, meets Iason's gaze in exasperation. "Yes." He sounds incredulous, scandalised, angry. For once, Iason thinks, Raoul appears off-balance.

"If that turned out to be correct," Iason says, "what would our Mother say? Would we need to create a new law? What if he grew his hair – would anyone be able to tell the difference?"

Raoul's eyes widen, he looks shocked. "You know what you are saying? Iason, not even you are untouchable!"

"I am just thinking aloud."

"Goods created with illegal Elite imprints will be destroyed. That _is_ the law."

"As far as I recall, that applies only to goods that are still under development."

"That may be a matter of legal interpretation," Raoul argues, with increasing urgency, "but I am sure Mother would disagree. The integrity of Elite imprints has to be preserved, or what would become of our world? We would disappear, there would be chaos. Nobody would gain anything. Even those... animals in the slums would agree, after that so-called resistance movement was squashed. The bloodshed!" He breaks off, shakes his head, then finishes more calmly, "Dana Bahn was a signal, was it not? A bitter day, so much waste..."

Iason says nothing. His gaze drifts back to the computer screen.

"It doesn't help," Raoul carries on, with renewed resolve now, "that you won't allow me to check. It's easy enough, I only need to scan it and run it's imprint through our library, but... why are you insisting on doing it yourself?"

"Are you questioning me, my friend?" Iason asks gently. He hasn't explained his search to anyone, and Raoul is fishing. _Part of the game, _Iason muses. _Or more, maybe?_

A flicker of something in those green depths, then they're still again, a lake in summer, fresh and clear, and sinfully inviting. Iason shifts in his seat and sets the cup back on the table. He is sure Raoul has no idea of his thoughts, and he locks them away again where they can't slip out.

"No," Raoul says, a tiny tremor in his voice as he inclines his head. "I apologise..."

"That's the second time in as many days," Iason says. "Please, have your coffee before it gets cold. It is good that we know each other so well, is it not? We can forgive small lapses."

xxx


	4. Chapter 4

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.**

xxx

Katze, looking sloppy in nothing but a white sheet slung loosely around his hips, leans against the bedroom door. He is smoking in long, nervy pulls. Iason rises and crosses the room. Katze, looking very young and tough as a weed, glares at him as he leans in to kiss Katze's cheek.

"You look tempting," Iason says, his breath warm against Katze's pale skin. "But you looked better last night." Naked, on hands and knees, in Iason's bed. Sheened with sweat and flushed with the heat of the moment. Iason's eyes narrow, then close as he lets renewed desire warm him, his hands roving slowly over Katze's flanks and belly.

Katze pushes lightly against him. "Iason, it's not enough."

"Oh?" Iason straightens and smooths out his uniform. Katze is almost as tall as he but thinner, his shoulders narrower and slightly hunched, as if he's always coiled up, waiting to pounce. Iason gazes at him curiously. "What is it then, that you want?"

"That's the first time you ask," Katze says. "How many months... no, make that years..."

Iason's brows draw together. "Your point?"

"I told you I need to get out of here sometimes."

"Let your hair grow. It would make things a lot easier. I could arrange-"

"No."

"No?"

"That's not what I mean. I'm not... I'm not like that. And I think it wouldn't make anything easier for you here."

"I can deal with that."

"I can't," comes the dry retort.

Iason's even expression clouds over. "Why do you have to be so stubborn all the time? It's tiring."

If Katze could get any whiter than he is, he would. All colour drains from his lips, and ash drips from his cigarette onto the polished hardwood floor. For a heartbeat, silence sinks between them, before Katze pulls the sheet tight and draws back, out of Iason's reach. "That's just me," he says, his voice not quite steady.

Abruptly, Iason turns. Another tug at his uniform, a slight tremor running through him – something Katze picks up because he has learned to watch out for the slightest sign of a change of mood, the shade of an emotion, anything that ruffles Iason's polished surface. Anything to relieve the monotony of endless days of idling without a sense of purpose.

"Very well," Iason says, and Katze's breath hitches. Iason goes to the computer terminal that sits on his desk and switches it on. His fingers wander over the keyboard that is integral to the thick glass plate of the table. "If managing my household isn't enough for you... perhaps this will help resolve your boredom. I want you to show me what you can do."

"What is it?"

"You tell me. You will explain to me what you find, and what you think it means."

"Then what?" Katze says to Iason's broad back.

"Then we will see what we can do."

"We?"

Iason draws a deep, sharp breath. "I have changed the access settings. You should find this easy."

xxx

Katze is hooked from the moment he starts. He has been playing with computers since he can remember, but this is something different, like climbing from a bicycle into a racing car, and he gets high on it. When Iason gets back from a day packed with business negotiations and diplomatic meetings, the room is dark, the glow of the city the only light that comes from the panorama window. Katze still wears nothing but the sheet around his hips. Hunched before the computer, the screen casting a bluish hue over his pale face, he has forgotten time and place.

He blinks when the door slides shut and Iason crosses the room. Katze rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "I didn't realise..."

Iason bends to kiss the top of Katze's head, grips his shoulders and begins to knead them firmly. "I thought as much. I have eaten. Perhaps you would like to order some food."

Katze sags back against him and groans softly as Iason mauls his knotted muscles. "You wanted me to tell you... ouch... ow! That hurts, dammit!"

"Don't swear," Iason says, but his touch eases. Katze can hear a smile in his tone and gleams up at him. Iason's face is shaded by his hair, and Katze can't make out his expression. In his uniform of office with its wide shoulderpads and strict silhouette, Iason looks even taller than he is, and he smells of expensive aftershave that is not his own.

Katze wrinkles his nose but doesn't dwell on this - he prefers not to know who might have got that close to Iason. "I think what I found were trading accounts," he starts, trying to keep the excitement out of his tone. "You're doing business with most of Tanagura and a few off-world traders. Your assets are distributed over a number of interconnected and unrelated holdings, dummy companies and trusts. Most of them are used to evade tax on profits, right? Very clever. Others donate funds to party campaigns of the ruling faction of the Elite. That's yours. Is this clean?" He ponders for a moment, then shakes his head. "Never mind. Your main interests lie with emerging technologies, in particular biotechnologies and pharmaceuticals, and you and Raoul are principal shareholders in at least five different research and development enterprises. Oh, and your hobby... You like unusual items of household inventory – they're either too dark, or too old or otherwise of low value. I didn't know you fancy collecting oddballs."

"Are you an oddball?" Iason frowns. "You certainly aren't cheap, or easy to keep. Besides, there are enough of the bland kind around. I'm tired of them."

"Raoul thinks you shouldn't spoil your mind by looking at ugly stuff."

Iason's hands splay over Katze's chest. He kisses Katze's cheek, then his jaw. "Then let me clean up by looking at something beautiful. Shower with me."

"I'm not done here..."

"It will take you weeks to go through everything," Iason murmurs distractedly, his lips brushing Katze's skin, his hair sliding over the redhead's shoulders and tickling him. Iason caresses Katze's nipples. Katze gasps and tenses, and Iason gently bites his ear. "Let's order some food and something to drink," he says, thoughtfully. "We can have some wine, in the bath. Then I want you to scrub my back. And after that-" His voice drops to an urgent whisper. Katze freezes, then shivers, then scrambles to his feet and shoves, drags and nudges Iason towards the bedroom with its attached bathroom.

xxx

Raoul pushes a holodisk into his computer and watches as the three-dimensional model of a genetic code seems to condense from the air. It becomes denser and brighter, a complicated, chaotic web of fine lines, double-helixed strings and knots spinning in the dusky room that is Raoul's generously appointed office, almost filling it. The full-body image of an unclothed young woman appears next to the model, and then several sequences of the helix change colour from faded green and blue to bright purple.

Raoul raises his gloved hand and touches a corner of the cloud of light. It begins to spin slowly. He stares at the image and the genome for a long time, studying the woman's features. In the end he turns away, touches a few fields on the computer screen and then watches the projection dissolve into darkness. He closes his eyes. For a while, he sits there, unmoving, his hands flat on the desk, his face still.

Outside, deep below his office that is just below Iason's suite of state at the top of the towerblock of glass and steel, the city glows in nightly splendour.

Raoul draws a slow, shuddering breath. He swivels on his chair to take in the view, and his gaze drifts to the lone star that shines high in the sky, where darkness at last soaks into the haze of light and the giant crescents of the twin moons are just razor-sharp lines.

"Iason," Raoul murmurs. "Forgive me..."

xxx

Katze has time. He also has the experience of years of hacking for fun and nothing better to do. His agile mind soaks up what there is to learn about Iason's business deals, the machinery of money and connections that provides the foundation of his power. At times, it makes Katze feel cold, when he begins to understand just how long the reach of that power is. And even if he tells himself that he should have known and that none of it comes as a surprise, it is different having the proof before his eyes.

It startles him to discover that doubts start seeping into what he feels for Iason. Worries about not finding back to Iason as he has known him for what seems an eternity. And the fear that Iason might sense it, the slow poison that's creeping up on Katze. A strange kind of grief as he ploughs on, eager to find out more, unable to hold back because he also hopes, against all odds, that he might be mistaken. That there is something else, something that helps him pull together the Iason he loves with the image that emerges from his research. An eclipse of the twin moons, so rare that Tamagura has legends about it.

Katze doesn't quite realise that he is dying, strangling himself. If anything, his nights with Iason grow more passionate because he is fired up by both, longing and the determination o hold on to what is real to him. As if he could wipe out all he's seen during the day, all that keeps him and his like in their given place. And Iason...

"I love you," he says once, still intimately joined to Katze who lies beneath, wrapped around Iason's muscular form, eyes closed so he can stay afloat a little longer.

"How?" Katze murmurs unthinkingly.

Iason bears down on him, his weight almost crushing Katze's wiry body. "I don't know how," he says, cool irritation tainting his tone.

Katze sprawls out. Breathing is difficult with Iason pressing him into the mattress like that. "Funny," he manages, "that's what I thought."

Iason moves inside him. "Stop thinking," he growls.

Katze stops talking instead.

xxx

He doesn't argue when Iason asks him to take on more responsibility, and work is transferred to Katze from whoever has done it before – Iason trusts him to join the strings of his puppets, the streams of money that pool in Iason's accounts, the web of deals that have little to do with the image that Amoi's Elite presents to the outside world. But when Iason comes home to him, these things fade, lingering in the shadows of Katze's mind but not consuming him. He tells himself there really is no alternative, and that the blood spilled at Dana Bahn has sealed not only Ceres' fate but that of Tanagura. The future, he thinks, is unchanging, like the past. Amoi is eternal. His life isn't, and as weeks, months, eternities pass, he is relieved to find that he can still love Iason.

And yet, he feels as he digs deeper into Iason's vast computer system, there is no harm in knowing and playing dumb, just enough to make sure. Blind trust giving way to caution, the instincts that have helped him survive unharmed a childhood in the slums Ceres, where the likes of him are not just bullied but hunted by those who want to preserve the integrity of the Elite.

He shakes off his unease as he plays with the coded sequences that protect a few files in an obscure place. It excites him to overcome these barriers, set by people beyond his class, with years of education that he cannot even dream of, or by machines whose neural networks are more powerful than any living brain. He loves the rush as he challenges and spars, picking the path of most resistance, without any particular aim. A few dead ends, a couple of skilfully disguised blind turns, the joy of skirting a sentinel. Somewhere along the way, network traffic becomes thin and dies off completely en route to a handful of highly encrypted files. Katze realises that nobody but Iason can access these data without breaking the code. He dodges a few virtual tripwires that could trigger an intruder alert, and sees that Iason has looked at the data every day. Katze is intrigued, a last shred of hesitation warring with burning curiosity and something deeper that he cannot quite name. He teeters at the cusp - and then he jumps.

He jolts when a blinding light flares up on the screen. He grows cold. His skin prickles, the tiny hairs on his arms rising. His hands – clammy and suddenly numb – still on the keyboard as he stares at what is unfolding before him. His throat goes dry as he swallows. It takes him only seconds to understand, to create an uplink and fire a copy of the data into the virtual space of the web. Streaming them, like torrents of exploding fireworks that he can gather back later. He starts shaking, nausea knotting his guts as he keeps staring, as if he could speed it up that way. He will be able to hunt down later what he needs if he stays alive enough, for long enough...

He slides off the chair and drops to his knees the moment the door opens and Iason steps in. Iason sweeps past Katze without acknowledging him. He swings his staff of office and smashes the computer just as the last remnants of data flicker up into cyberspace. Katze covers his head with his hands against the flying shards of glass and plastic. The next blow lands on his back, across his ribcage with a sickening crack, leaving him choking for air. Another one, aimed with precision at his kidneys. He howls as he falls, curling up on the wooden floor. Iason keeps beating him, his face blank, in a cold, systematic way until Katze can't stir and scream anymore. Blood trails from his nose and mouth, and his mind is white with agony.

Daryl steps into the room, but when he realises what is happening, his eyes grow wide, his face ashen, and he freezes.

Iason pauses, breathless, his face flecked red, sweat beading on his forehead. A few strands of hair are stuck to his temples. "Go." he snaps.

The boy withdraws hastily without a word, his head bowed low.

Iason breaks away and paces, along the walls of the room like a caged animal, one round that ends by the panorama window. For a moment, he looks through the thick glass, through his reflection and that of Katze's limp form at the star of Amoi, high above the city that to him is perfect in its beauty.

Katze tries to stir and is unable to suppress a small sob.

Iason whips around and returns to Katze, who can't even flinch. For a few heartbeats, Iason stares down at him as he is trying to pull away. The polished floor is smeared with blood. Katze reaches out with one shaking hand, fingers bending feebly to touch Iason's feet.

Iason wedges his staff under his elbow and yanks off his gloves, then he grips the staff with one hand and stoops to haul Katze's head up by his hair. He studies Katze's gaze that is unfocused, his features that are distorted with pain. Blood runs freely from Katze's bitten lip, but otherwise his face is unharmed. Iason drags him up until Katze is on his hands and knees. One end of the staff is pointed and honed, like an old-fashioned lance. Iason steps back, and Katze, throbbing with hurt, dazed and sick, can't think, doesn't even feel afraid anymore. The blade gleams, he sways and turns his head in reflex and it catches his cheek, tearing through skin and muscle. He yells as he slumps, clutching at the gushing wound. The cloying taste of hot steel fills his mouth.

Iason, his uniform soiled with blood, raises the staff once more but he freezes when Daryl appears, the door closing silently behind him. He has a tray with coffee in his trembling hands, and his voice is thin as he asks permission to place it on the desk. His boldness gives Iason pause, and for a moment everything is in balance.

Then Iason points the staff at Katze. "Clean up this mess," he says to Daryl, his voice bland and slightly breathless. "And bring me fresh clothes. I want him back here as soon as the medics are done with him."

xxx


	5. Chapter 5

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.**

xxx

Guy doesn't argue when Riki turns up with a few clothes in a ratty holdall and the tools for his bike in a rucksack slung across the tank. Riki moves into Guy's space as if he'd always belonged.

They eat together, they sleep together, and Guy lives in a daze. Every night he feels as if it's the first time with Riki, and he can't believe it when he tries to flip their roles one evening – just to test the water, with not much hope and not particularly fixed on succeeding – and Riki simply lets him. Not only lets him, but encourages him. They have the time of their lives. Riki seems high on something, and when Guy asks, Riki laughs and wriggles under him to reach into the pocket of his jeans that lie in a heap on the floor. He shows Guy a couple of smokes, hand-rolled stuff with a cloying sweet smell. Guy hesitates, Riki goads, calling him chickenshit until he gives in. _Just once, _he tells Riki, _I'm not into that sort of stuff._

He has to try a few times before he can inhale the thick smoke, and the high hits him almost instantly, with dizzying force. He is on top of Riki and on top of the world, and Riki clings to him with arms and legs, writhing and growing more vocal with every shove and push until they both explode. Guy sees a burst of light, blindingly intense as he melts into Riki's heat. Riki shouts out his release, and it spills between them, making their skin slick and sticky. Guy drowns Riki in a throat-jabbing kiss before pulling back and licking down his throat, his nipples, his belly and lower still. Riki claws into Guy's hair that has fallen loose, and tugs at handfuls of glossy copper strands. He rises into Guy's touch, and Guy grabs Riki's hips and holds him, then presses into him again. Whatever Riki has given him, it fills his body with heat and a rush that drives him on, wipes out any worries, keeps him hungry and ready.

When dawn drifts over the skyline of the city, the bed is a sweaty, sticky mess. Riki lies on his back, sprawled out, snoring. Guy has thrown one leg and one arm across him, his hand covering one of Riki's nipples. The room smells of weed and gunk, and whitish flakes are drying on Riki's face, his stomach, between his legs. Guy's hair is a greasy mess, and he is out cold with sated exhaustion.

It is the first time since he has the garage that he doesn't open at dawn.

xxx

Guy isn't happy about oversleeping. He buys an old-fashioned alarm clock, one with glow-in-the-dark hands and a buzzer, and every morning he crawls out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off. He starts his day with a quick wash and some reheated coffee from the previous evening. By the time he unlocks the pump and gets his tools ready to mend whatever old car he's got in the garage, he feels almost awake. He buys accident cars and does them up, sells them cheap and straight. _What you see is what you get, _he tells his customers – people who scrape by on government handouts and minimum-wage jobs. They see a battered but functional chassis and an overhauled, reasonably reliable engine at a price they can afford. Some pay in instalments and collect their car whenever it's paid in full. Guy keeps a book and gives them receipts for every payment.

"I'm no rip-off," he says when Riki mocks him for being too soft. "And you, keep your nose out of my business if you don't want to work with me. You could, you know."

Riki laughs him off. "I make more money in a week than you in a year."

Guy shakes his head, wondering but keeping his thoughts to himself. He is too happy to bother much, and he finds it hard to imagine how he could ever have done without feeling like this.

Riki sleeps until late morning, sometimes even past midday, before he bothers with anything. When he gets up, he is usually hung-over and needs a shower that uses up all the warm water in the tank. He makes fresh coffee, checks the old enamelled flask Guy uses when he works in the garage, and refills it. It makes Guy edgy that Riki lets himself drift like this, but when Riki turns up with the flask and a stainless steel mug for him, Guy swallows what he wants to throw at him, and melts back into the warm haze of whatever it is Riki makes him feel. Riki never misses the opportunity to touch and kiss, working Guy up and making him hot, and he'll always disappear before Guy can bring things to a conclusion, leaving him high 'n dry and full of impatient expectation. Riki keeps his mind and his body occupied like this, and Guy doesn't complain.

He doesn't know where Riki goes on his bike, or what he does when he meets his gangmates. Riki doesn't offer any information, only "I'm okay, quit worrying, it's all cool." He brings home money – not often but in spades that last him for months at a time. Fat wads of unmarked, dirty bills, stuffed loosely into his pockets and lace-up boots. Once, a few banknotes fall out of his jeans when he undresses in the evening. The money is warm and damp, and Guy sees that Riki doesn't wear anything underneath the jeans. It bothers him, but Riki smothers him in kisses and more, and he doesn't ask. When they sleep with each other that night, Guy is a bit rougher than usual, making Riki squirm, but if anything, the pain of a hard, dry screw seems to turn Riki on even more. He is sore afterwards, and Guy feels bad when he sees him lurch to the bathroom to slather some lube on belatedly, to soothe the burn. When he slumps back into bed, Guy gently, reluctantly strokes his chest and belly.

"I'm sorry," he says, worry churning in his gut.

Riki snorts. He grabs Guy's hand and puts it down over his crotch. "Don't be stupid. Feel that? Man, sometimes I wish you'd just let go. I'm not make of glass, you know."

Guy feels taken aback. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Riki snaps. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," Guy says, getting angry. "But you, are you always wired like this? You got only fucking in your head, or the next high?"

"I'm no dopehead," Riki snaps, grinding into Guy's palm. "And I don't need to sell myself." His eyes drift shut, his lips part and he groans quietly as he pushes up his hips. "Jesus... I've never... it's different..."

Guy, his anger fading as quickly as it has flared, closes his fingers around Riki's privates. "How?" he murmurs, breathing in Riki's smell of sex and smoke that he can never get enough of.

"I want... ah... I mean, what if you have enough one day? I'm no good, am I? Can't hold a steady job and all that shit... Guy, please, can you fuck me now?"

It works. Guy stops asking, missing the moment because he always melts for Riki, and Riki knows it.

xxx

The next morning, Riki is up earlier than usual. He checks over his bike for which Guy has found a home in a corner of the garage, and puts his holdall across the pillion. Guy is outside, filling up a ratty-looking pickup for a couple of men in oily coveralls. Riki gets the flask ready and puts it on the workbench that runs along the length of the garage. It's odd, Riki thinks as he watches, that Guy doesn't take payment from the men – instead he hands over a pack of money that one of them slides into his chestpocket. They shake hands with Guy before driving off.

When Guy steps into the garage, Riki nods at the pump. "What was that about?"

Guy fills his cup with hot coffee and lets him sizzle. Riki presses against him while he is drinking. "Did they bother you? I'll-"

"No," Guy says quickly. Riki's hands link over Guy's middle. Guy grabs them before Riki can do anything. "Not now. I got work."

Riki clings fast. "You sure they didn't bother you? I mean-"

"I know what you mean." Guy sets the cup down and turns in Riki's embrace. For a moment, they look at each other. Riki looks incredibly young, Guy thinks, warmth pooling in his belly, making his heart beat faster and his pulse throb in his temples. He swallows hard, then gently grips Riki's wrists and pries his hands away. "I told you before, I can take care of my business, and of myself. How about you?"

Riki tilts his head and shrugs, pushing out his lower lip in a sulk. "I'm okay. Well, suit yourself."

"I bought something," Guy says, enjoying the glint of curiosity that quickly brightens Riki's eyes.

"Oh? A present?"

Guy shrugs. "Sure, for myself." He finds the disappointment that washes across Riki's face both funny and sad, and quickly drags him along to the forecourt. "There," he nods in the direction of the airpump, to the side of the court.

"Wow!" Riki almost jumps. "You bought a bike! I can't believe it!"

"Why? You think I'm too old for that?" Guy jibes, putting in words something that's been eating away at him since Riki made his first pass at him.

Riki laughs. "No, but... ah, whatever. It's cool. It's really cool, man. I love you. You know that, don't you? I love you."

And Guy thinks that it was worth blowing the savings of years of work, the hopes for a flat in Midas and the deposit for a new, clean workshop, on this.

xxx

Guy locks up early that evening. Riki, strumming with excitement, circles him as he gets the new bike ready – an heavy, rugged machine, big like a bull and sprayed black, with a powerful engine that includes a turbocharger for each of its six massive cylinders. Riki crouches to reverently finger the open air valves, the huge brake discs. He jumps up again and strokes the seat that is covered in cracked brown leather, the fuel barrel that more than deserves its name, the wide, rusty handlebars. He swings his leg over the seat and sits astride the bike that's still on its centre-stand while Guy uses a hand-gauge to check tyre pressure, oil and coolant levels, and wipes the clocks on the broad dashboard with a soft rag until they gleam. Riki chews gum and talks about rides and speed, horsepower, revs and how sometimes things happen too fast just not when it matters...

Guy ignores Riki's impatient jibes and carries on until he is satisfied. When he goes to change, Riki drags his own bike out, pulling it up next to Guy's. His breath hitches when Guy appears from the garage door and locks up. He is wearing old but tidy biker leathers that cling tight to his tall frame, and has tucked his ponytail under the high collar of the jacket. When he turns, his eyes shine a bright, clear blue-grey, and he is smiling. Riki feels incredibly turned on as a rush of lust and something else, less heated and more gentle, flush through him. It is a strange feeling and it spooks him enough to make him hit the ignition to drown it in noise and exhaust fumes.

xxx

Riki half expects Guy to lag behind and get lost in the maze of streets that lead from Ceres to Mistral, an area full of warehouses and industrial buildings. Foundries, mills, refineries. Chimney stacks belching smoke and gas flares, cranes, derricks, silos. The stink of burning oil and damp concrete and the incessant pulse of hard, dirty work. Huge halls with glass ceilings, trade exhibitions, offices and workshops, the raw, restless din of fast-paced business like a thick blanket over the people that crowd them. Wide roads busy with lorries and forklift trucks that have worn deep ruts into the tarmac. The sky over Mistral is yellow and black, the sun a pale grey disc behind veils of smog.

When Riki pulls his bike onto a short driveway that leads onto an abandoned steelyard, he is surprised and excited to hear the heavy growl of Guy's machine right behind him. Riki winds his way through narrow alleyways between stacks of rusty girders, the spaces just wide enough for the bike. He has to slow down, wobbling and putting his foot down sometimes, when the handlebars knock against a girder and throw him off balance. The mouth of the alley opens onto a space that looks like a rubbish dump. One side borders the wall that encloses the yard, redbrick, crumbling mortar, topped with razorwire. On another are the side entrance to what would have been the office of an old warehouse, a steeldoor with peeling grey paint and a new bolt and padlock, a steel-framed window set in the prefab concrete elements, its small panes blind or broken. Warped, messy stacks of girders and rolls of sheet metal wall in the other two sides, with a few tight gaps between them.

Silently, the door opens a little. A man's silhouette appears in the gap, and the barrel of a gun glints from the shadows, before he steps out and lowers the sawn-off shotgun he carries against his hip. His jacket gapes open over his bare chest, his jeans are unbuttoned and ride low on his hips. He pushes back the shades he wears, and rakes his messy brown hair back. A wide smile appears on his face. "Riki! About time you show up."

"Hey, Luke, no shit," Riki laughs, as he navigates his bike around a discarded coil of wire and pulls it up. There is a small metal plate on the ground, barely visible under layers of dirt, but Riki knows it's there because he's put it there as a base for the sidestand of his machine. He parks up. Two other men appear, one – broad and muscular, with short dark hair – from between the stacks of girders. He is busy buttoning up his fly. The other one, slim and pretty, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, leans against Luke.

They tense when they hear Guy's bike. Luke clutches his gun, his knuckles whitening. "What's up, Riki?"

Guy emerges from the gap and brakes sharply when he sees the three men. Riki spreads his arms. "Easy, man. I told you about him, didn't I? And how often have we filled up at the garage? Luke," he turns to look at the young man with the gun, "ease off, okay?" Riki winks at the youth with the fag. "Hi, Norris. Been busy?" The youth blushes but gives him a smile. Riki turns to the bulky one with a smirk. "Too much pressure, Syd?" He doesn't wait for an answer but looks at Guy who is astride his bike, his hand inside his jacket. Riki knows that he's carrying the gun. "Guy, meet Bison. You can leave that thing where it is."

xxx


	6. Chapter 6

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.  
Additional warning: injury, bleakness, abuse of medication.**xxx

Katze comes round on a firm white bed, amid the quiet hum and bleep of machines, in a small, curtained cubicle that smells of disinfectant. Dazed, he lies still for a few heartbeats, before trying to stir. It's surprisingly easy, and he grabs the railing of the bed to pull himself up. A dull, deep ache spreads through his body, he can tell it's coming from his stomach but there is no sharp pain, so he shuffles towards the edge of the bed. He sees a clear tube, a drip, and a needle stuck in the back of his hand, and tries to focus on reading the label of the drip. Saline. He tears the needle out. His hand is badly bruised. When he dangles his legs off the edge of the bed, he grows lightheaded and short of breath, and he also realises that he is wearing a white hospital gown. His clothes lie draped over the back of a white plastic chair.

He stands up, holding on to the railing until he can sit down on the chair. When he takes off the gown, he bites back a groan. His body is black and blue, and his back is on fire. Slowly, he gets dressed. When he slips his loose grey cotton jumper over his head, his face feels numb and tight. He raises his hand to touch it, he freezes.

Rugged, spiky, surgical thread knotting together flesh and skin. The wound is swollen, all the way from his left temple, narrowly missing his ear, and stretching down to his chin. It tugs at his mouth when he licks his lips that are dry and chapped.

He feels nothing.  
And perhaps, it drifts through his mind as he waits for the haze of heavy medication to clear from his brain, that's the worst.

xxx

Cautiously he pushes the curtain around the cubicle aside. He can see Daryl, sitting nearby, reading. A book on computer algorithms. Katze moves to the other side and slinks out. He makes a teeth-grinding effort to walk instead of dropping to his hands and elbows to crawl, his abused kidneys and ribs making every step agony even through the fog of painkillers. There are two rows of cubicles, some open, some closed, with a hallway in the middle and a frosted-glass door in the centre of each row. Katze knows his way around – years of boredom and walking the halls of Eos, with and without Iason's permission, have imprinted on his mind a map of the gleaming fortress within the city, including its state of the art clinic for the expensive living toys the Elite keep. He's never liked the place, but now it gives him the creeps. He wanders past the nurse's dayroom and a small dispensing office, pauses and turns back to raid the dispensing cupboard for opiates. From the dayroom he swipes an off-white coat that someone has put on the peg there. In the chest pocket is a doctor's ID card. In the dispensing office he finds some capsules and a few ampoules of morphine and grabs two handfuls that he stuffs into the pockets of the stolen coat. He sets a shot into his thigh and waits for it to kick in, relief flooding through him when he realises he can move much easier, the pain mercifully subdued for a while.

And then Katze takes a deep breath, clutches the ID swipecard, and walks.

xxx

Daryl is prostrate on the floor of Iason's room. He has his hands folded over his head. He is crying, his body shaking.

Iason is standing by the window and staring down at the city. For the first time in his life he feels betrayed by it.

xxx

Katze can't believe that he's walked out of Eos. He's used the swipecard and the fact that nobody will care to look at his face if he keeps the injured side covered with his hair. He feels lucky, sort of, that he's tall and fair, that the upturned collar of the coat can disguise that his fiery hair isn't long enough for an Elite. He puts a spring in his step and confidence in his posture even though he is dying, dying, dying...

It is strange to be outside the walls of Eos. Katze stands by the busy freeway for some time, watching the traffic. The main gate is behind him, and ahead he can see the skyline of area one with its casino, the brothels and amusement arcades. To the south and west, layers of smog cover Mistral and obscure the outskirts of Tanagura, the slums of Ceres, the working areas of HerBay. He has no money and no place to go, he is hurting inside and out, and his brain is fuzzed with the effect of the morphine and the aftereffects of the anaesthetic that's been pumped into him so Iason's medics could fix him up.

_Wits, _he thinks, _use them..._

He tries to recall what he knows of Iason's business deals. A short time later, he flags down a cab. His lower back is throbbing, but he manages to project enough self-assurance to pull off the act. He pays using the embedded chip on the card. It's a trail but there's no choice, and he hopes it might take some time for anyone to link the card to him.

_No, _he tells himself,_ bullshit. I'm gone, Iason will know, the doc will log the card as stolen or lost, they will scan the city for it, they'll know..._

He feels his strength drain away by degrees, giving way to something heavy, dragging him down, but he's still fighting. He asks the taxidriver to drop him off in Apathia, near the railway that leads into Mistral. It would be nice to hitch a ride on one of the freight trains that thunder past, but he knows he hasn't got a chance in his state, and trudges on instead, stubborn and refusing to think beyond the next hundred steps.

When dusk falls, Katze has made it into the industrial area. He shacks up behind a pile of empty oildrums and uses the coat as a blanket against the chill of night. He doses up, knowing he'll need to eat and find something to drink soon. He feels miserable when he drops off, passing out into an uneasy sleep packed with nightmares.

xxx

He needs a computer. Cold and stiff he wakes at dawn, his clothes clammy with dew, and after he's set another shot of morphine, he can only think of getting to a computer. He wonders whether he could steal one, but doesn't want to risk getting caught. It makes him sick to think of what might happen to him in that case.

Instead he takes a commuter train into Ceres. Amid the scrum of people in work clothes, most of them dark of complexion and with tired, numb faces, he stands out, but nobody looks at him too closely. Perhaps it's the fist he keeps in his coat pocket so that it looks as if he's carrying a gun. Or the bloody scar on his face. Or the image he sees of himself when he chances a glance in the dirty mirror of the window – dirty clothes, hollowed out features, eyes deep in sockets, greasy hair and an expression that's close to mad.

He walks into a shop with a small display window and metal shutters, one in a long row that line one of the dirty streets. Shops that sell second and third hand clothes, some with odd stains on them. Places where he could buy the latest in modern weaponry, at a price. Convenience stores where drug dealers loiter on the doorsteps, to add that little extra to the daily groceries that often consist of bottles and cigarettes. Internet cafes that offer the cheapest rates for off-world calls or calls to Midas and the areas to the south east of Eos, where some of the migrant workers have families, never to see them again because the slave wages they're earning in bone-breaking shifts go on rent and schooling for their kids, in the desperate hope for a better life.

_It's never going to happen, _Katze thinks. _Nobody can earn, buy, claw their way out of the place they were born into. Not on Amoi._

Amid almost lifelike sex dolls and other expensive electronics at throwaway prices, he looks for a suitable laptop. The old man behind the counter has a sly, dark face with vivid black eyes that scan Katze quickly before he smiles. "The gentleman wants something good? No? Not cheap?"

"Let me see that one," Katze points at a machine. He gets it, fires it up, runs through the system specifications, finds that he can connect wirelessly to the web. It takes him ten minutes to create a fake account and transfer some of Iason's money into it. Then he wipes the machine and hands it back. He tells the old man the machine is faulty, and leaves.

From a cash machine on a street corner he withdraws the money he's stolen. At a gas station he stops to ask for the next car dealer. The man, tall and trim, with reddish brown hair tied in a pony tail, points at the old roadster that sits in his garage cum workshop. The car is ready, he says, just finished and good to go, clean, with papers and all that jazz.

Katze buys, pays cash. The man fills the car up for him, and Katze drives off. He feels desperate for food and some water, he needs to piss and sleep. He pulls in at a roadside motel on the fringe of Ceres that offers hourly rates. The place stinks of desinfectant and cheap perfume. It has a vending machine with packets of crisps, cigarettes and soft drinks. Katze buys a few packets of crisps and two bottles of sweetened water.

When he lies down on the bed in the tiny room, he can hear the sound of waves crashing against a rocky shore, and he realises he is feverish. He drinks the water, then gropes in the coat pockets for morphine – the intervals between the shots have grown shorter before pain flares through him again – but finds only tablets. He stares at the grey, cracked ceiling.

_What's the point, _it drifts through his mind, _what's the bloody point? Ah, yes... I'm on the run... from you, Iason..._

xxx

The youth behind the tiny reception desk wears a skintight, sleeveless tanktop made of sheer black lycra, and shorts that leave most of his backside bare. His eyes are painted, and his lips glossed. He sits in a bullet-proof booth with a sliding tray for money or cards and takes Katze's cash without thanks.

Katze asks him for the next doctor. The youth shrugs. Katze shoves another banknote through the slot, and another before the boy sniffs and scribbles a name and a telephone number on the rough side of a waxed paper condom wrapper and pushes it back.

xxx

The 'clinic' is in the basement of a shop that sells exotic herbal remedies that Katze would bet are fake. Above are places that are rented out as flats – dumps where the rent has to be paid in advance and tenants turnover is by the week. Katze lets the grubby middle-aged man with balding head and a twitching eyelid grope him more than needed; he hisses when those clammy hands glide over his ribcage and back, lower than they should, reluctant to let off.

"Well, can you give me something?" he snaps, pushing himself up from the examination couch that has no cover on its cold, sticky waxcloth.

The man licks his lips as he keeps touching Katze up with his gaze. "Yes, yes, sir, I can, of course, at a cost..."

Katze glares at him, and the man breaks away. Katze buttons up his coat. "Then give me whatever you have, and I'll pay."

"It needn't be with money," the man ventures.

Katze smirks. "Come here," he growls.

His face brightening, the man does what Katze tells him, and once Katze has him by his nuts, he yanks. Hard. The guy howls and drops to his knees. Katze kicks him under the chin, watching him fall back and hit the stone floor hard with the back of his head. Katze gets up and rifles through the desk opposite the examination couch. He finds a gun, a clip of ammunition, a prescription pad that he slides into his pocket, along with the contents of the medicine cabinet on the wall above.

xxx

That evening, he holes up in a room he's rented for a week in one of the crumbling lowrise blocks that line the streets of Ceres. The place is dirty and smells of piss and rats, the toilet is on flight of stairs down the hallway, but he can lock the door, and the windows have shutters with bolts, there is a sink with running water and a bed with a plastic-sheeted mattress. He has eaten some junkfood at a drive-through diner.

When he lies down, still clothed, he feels a wave of exhaustion wash through him, different from the acute, morphine-induced tiredness or the constant drain of hurt from his injuries. His face hurts, his ribs throb, his lower back is killing him. But none of that is too bad, because it's finite, limited, and he knows it's not likely to be his end. Closing his eyes, he can't avoid wondering anymore why he did it in the first place. He longs for a clean bed and a warm bath, for decent food and a place that doesn't smell.

He longs for Iason's touch.

With a gasp, he turns on his side and curls up, burying his face in the musky pillow.  
He can't give in. He can't turn back. He is on his own.

xxx


	7. Chapter 7

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.  
Additional warning: injury, bleakness, abuse of medication.**

xxx

For days Katze stays put, living on as little as he can get by with. He buys bread, coffee and cigarettes at a nearby corner shop. His car is vandalised, the windscreen smashed, tyres slit open, the chassis sprayed with graffitti. He feels anger and a sudden, sharp urge to get the better of whoever did it, but he doesn't recognise the signature sprayed on the sprung bonnet and boot. Years ago, before following Iason to Eos, he would have known every Ceres gangmark.

His red hair is now an exotic liability. He is in the shop looking for hairdye when he feels someone closing in. He starts to turn, but before he can catch a glimpse of whoever it is, a cloth is slapped over his face and a heavy hand presses it down over his nose and mouth. Katze struggles, fresh agony searing through him, but he is fading fast as he breathes in the stuff they've soaked the cloth in. Something in his mind connects, is trying to form a thought, an idea, it frightens him but it never makes it to the surface before he passes out.

xxx

When he wakes up, he is in a white room that looks and smells clean. Silence is around him, inside him. _A nightmare, _he thinks slugglishly, _it was all just a nightmare..._ It takes him a while to regain his senses, the feel for his limbs and the weight of his body. It takes him longer to understand that this isn't the clinic at Eos, why he his strapped to the bed and what the particular position of his limbs means, along with the tube that pokes from the thick wadding of sterile cotton that is packed between his legs and covers his groin.

He is naked under a white sheet, his skin cool and damp. He feels light, without pain.  
And there is nothing, nothing at all he can do to change what's happened to him.

xxx

He isn't too surprised when he hears Iason's deep monotone through the door, and then his steps, long and sure, on the polished lino floor. The door thuds shut, a chair creaks.

"Look at me," Iason commands calmly.

Katze clenches his hands.

Iason waits.

At last, Katze opens his eyes and turns his head, just enough to avoid putting pressure on the stitches in his face. His gaze is blurry. "You bastard..."

Iason purses his lips. "You had everything I could give you."

Katze closes his eyes again. Iason draws a deep breath. "More than anyone outside of Eos could ever dream of."

"And you," Katze rasps, barely above his breath, "you had more than the rest of the Elite."

Iason rises and bends over him. Katze can sense his warmth, breathe his scent – sharp and clean – and it drives a shiver of disgust and something else through him. He hates himself because he can't help it.

"I keep what's mine," Iason says. "It wasn't too hard to find you. But I want to make it still easier." He takes Katze's wrist and clips a metal cuff around it. A small bleep tells Katze that the tracer bracelet is activated. "Raoul was right. I have been too lenient with you. Our world needs order. Everything and everyone has a place. Perhaps you've forgotten yours, therefore I will remind you where you belong."

There is nothing but blackness inside Katze's mind, a slow burn that consumes everything that has been. "This wasn't our deal."

"Deal?" Iason's eyes are frosty, the gaze of a stranger scrutinising Katze. "You chose to come to me, to Eos. I accommodated you. I humoured you, leaving you intact..."

"You wanted to kill me."

Iason settles back on the chair. "I have audited the files that you broke into. I know you well enough and I respect your... agility. I also know that you keep a backup somewhere, and I believe that you may wish to talk to me about some of your discoveries."

"I don't think so... not anymore."

"In that case, I might think it over and listen to Raoul's advice after all. Perhaps you'll come to your senses in time to avoid that."

"You promised," Katze ground out, "you said you'd never do this to me. You made me a... thing! One of those-"

"Like Daryl. One of those."

There is a long pause, before Iason reaches for Katze's wrist. He strokes it, gently, once. "I trusted you." He lets the weight of these words, their significance, sink in for a few heartbeats. "Here is your choice. You found out about Raoul's concerns, his objections about my latest shipment. I want you to track down the dealer and replace him. I don't care how. You know the business and you know Ceres – it should be easy for you to reacquaint yourself. You will work for me in his place. The account you set up with the fake ID – you will have sufficient funds in there to cover your needs, business or private. It's your call."

"Iason," Katze says, exhaustion in his tone, "Cut the bullshit."

Weariness sinks into Iason's voice when he talks again. "You learned things nobody outside the Elite is supposed to know. And now, in a way, we're closer than before. Neither of us can create offspring without the help of technology. Neither of us is perfect... the way we were supposed to be. Raoul must never find out."

"I got nothing to lose."

"I still love you. This is what I can offer."

Katze swallows the lump that chokes him and makes his eyes burn. He squeezes them shut.

Iason gets up and unclasps the restraints that kept Katze pinned to the bed. "You're in Midas, with one of my business acquaintances. They'll take care of you here until you're healed. You can try to run or face what's ahead. This," a firm clonk, "is something you may wish to carry. Whichever decision you make, it might help you back it up."

When the door clicks shut, Katze opens his eyes. On the nightstand, within easy reach, lies a gun.

xxx

Guy sticks to his schedule. He works from dawn to dusk, sells gas and mends old cars. His evenings belong to Riki. He grows haggard, with bags under his eyes because he doesn't get enough sleep, and stubble on his face because he starts skipping his morning routine to catch every moment of sleep he can get. He drinks more coffee and eats less. He falls asleep over a plate of soup, he nods off over his drink. His nights with Riki cool off because Guy takes longer, and in the end doesn't manage, to sleep with him. When Guy drops off while Riki is trying to blow him, Riki offers him one of the self-rolled joints.

"C'mon, it's going to pick you up nicely."

It does. Things refresh between them, and for a while all is well again. Guy doesn't want to tell Riki that the stuff is making his hands shaky and he finds it harder to concentrate on his work. He forgets details – a wheel-cap, a lightbulb, the lid on the oil reservoir of a car engine...

He has to take the car back from the man who bought it. It is ruined, the camshaft's run dry and hot, smashing the overheated bearings and breaking through the cast-iron housing of the engine. The bonnet and floorplate of the car black with burned oil. Guy doesn't argue – he knows it was his mistake and pays the man back the money he's paid. He has to spend time on dismantling the car for as many spares as he can get, loads the mangled rest onto his old truck and takes it to a scrapyard in Mistral. It's the first time he's lost money on a deal.

"Tell you what," Riki says as they lie in bed that night, Riki smoking, Guy snoozing.

"Hm..."

Riki strokes Guy's back, combs through his hair and leans down to blow some smoke into his face. "Well... there's this bloke..."

Guy grunts. He is half asleep. Riki shakes him slightly. "Hey, listen. The money we make... why don't you try it at least? It's okay, nothing big, really... just running some errands. I think it's for some people who don't like to go outside Eos. We scare them out here."

"Good," Guy mumbles.

Riki smirks and drops back, angling his arm over his head and letting smoke curl from his nose. He watches the blue-grey curls rise to the ceiling and dissolve into fading whisps. "Yeah. Anyway, I know this bloke who's got stuff he sends to his mates around here... in Ceres, Midas, wherever. All over the place, and sometimes outside of Tanagura. He gets in touch over the mobile, I meet him in Midas or wherever. Not often, but when he does, he pays shitloads of bucks to get it all delivered, fair and square."

"Delivered what," Guy throws in, half asleep but his instincts still working, flagging up something fishy, only that it's too dulled by exhaustion to register much.

Riki shrugs and flicks some ash onto the floor. "No idea. Packs of stuff, wrapped up and sealed. Like normal post. Sometimes it's just envelopes. I dont' care, really. We checked it out – it isn't dangerous. The places we go, they're all dead drops. Perhaps he's got a crush out here."

"Bull," Guy says, his voice muffled with sleep and the pillow.

Riki sighs and scoots down so he can mould against Guy's back and dig his nose into Guy's hair. He finds it fascinating – Guy's pale skin, his hair that is much fairer than Riki's dark mop, his clear eyes. He can't get enough of Guy, of touching him, feeling him, and it frustrates him no end that their nights are now much calmer than they have been. "Yeah, probably. We've been doing it on and off for a while now. I think he's trading, off the beaten track so to speak. Some people pay good money to screw old toys."

"It's illegal," Guy grumbles. "That trade's restricted."

Riki shrugs. "We aren't really involved."

Guy stirs and turns so he can look at Riki. Riki meets his eyes, and as always they take his breath away. He leans down to kiss Guy. "I love you," Riki feels the restless drive settling somewhat as he says it, his lips moving against Guy's. "I've never had anyone like you."

Guy knows he wanted to ask something, but he's so tired he's forgotten what it is that nags him. He smiles and reaches up to draw Riki close. "It's great," he murmurs, "I didn't think it could be like this... ever..."

xxx


	8. Chapter 8

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.**

xxx

"Katze." Iason rises from behind his desk when the redhead enters the office. It has been months since they've last seen each other, and he's been waiting Katze out. A matter of time - the kind of business Katze is in now feeds off borrowed and bought authority as much as force and wits. When Katze got in touch at last, it was to ask for Iason's permission to expand his trading operations beyond Tanagura.

Daryl, on his knees by Iason's chair, withdraws. He keeps his head down. With rounded shoulders, hollowed-out cheeks and his gaze firmly on the floor, he looks beat and submissive. There are black marks on his wrists. He doesn't dare glancing at Katze.

"Iason." Katze's voice is quiet, his posture respectful – black-gloved hands linked before him, his head slightly bowed, his hair just long enough to fall over his eyes and the disfigured half of his face.

He still keeps it short though, and somehow that annoys Iason. Trying to ignore the twinge of irritation, he takes his seat again. "Sit... please."

Katze obeys without comment. On his side of the table is a flash new laptop has been installed, complete with its own docking station, the latest holo-burner and projector and a wide touchscreen. The screen is live, and from the icons on the desktop Katze can see that the machine is packed with state of the art software. He feels a flicker of interest but it doesn't stir him enough to tempt him. Not anymore.

"Talk to me," Iason prompts.

Katze's gaze is shaded, drifting past Iason, taking in the room as if he was seeing it for the first time. "May I smoke?"

Iason summons Daryl who, quick and silent like a shadow, serves an ashtray and coffee before disappearing again. Katze thinks that the boy is wearing too much makeup to conceal whatever spoils his looks, that his eyes look inflamed and too bright, and that he seems desperate to keep himself together. Katze wonders fleetingly whether Daryl has been bearing the brunt of Iason's moods recently, and whether being discarded by Iason would really be worse, but he's got other things to discuss now.

He reaches into the inside of his off-white coat – he has kept the thing for reasons he can't quite get – and pulls out a wallet and a packet of smokes. The shoulder holster he wears is empty because he had to leave his handgun at the security checkpoint controlling access to Eos tower. The plastic wrapper of the cigarette pack is torn, and when he flicks open the lid of the cardboard box and taps out a cigarette, Iason sees two slim black ones among the white smokes.

"Black Moon," he notes, glancing up at Katze.

"Just in case," Katze says, lighting up and taking a deep drag. He meets Iason's gaze at last, through a veil of smoke, and for a moment they just look at each other. "I did what you wanted," Katze hastens to break the sudden silence because it rattles him. "Set him up, had his mates take him out over a deal gone sour. Missing shares and all that."

"You triggered a major turf war. I have been approached with requests for troops to be deployed to Ceres." Iason seems almost amused.

Katze shrugs. "It's gangland, what do you want? You feeling sorry for them? It got you what you asked for. It's calmed down now, I have my territory, and it's a good time to expand."

"You have my permission." Iason leans back in his chair and lays his hands on the armrests. "I had your computer moved here. A new one. It's the best you can find anywhere on Amoi, and it's linked directly into my network."

"I prefer to work from my own place," Katze says quietly.

Iason's fingers clench. "With that old can you have there?"

"It'll do until I can afford something better. I've started repaying the loan you gave me; if you check your accounts-"

Iason slams his hands onto the armrests. Katze blinks, freezes.

"Keeping my books is _your_ job," Iason snaps. He takes a deep breath, shakes his head. "I want you to report to me, here, regularly."

"That's asking for trouble."

"I'll make that decision," Iason retorts. "Can't you try to understand?"

"I understand," Katze says, flatly.

Iason waits, then gets up abruptly and paces, pausing by the window. "I had no choice. There were people who would have been happy to see you eliminated. My position wasn't easy. I have been scrutinised, criticised. I had to break it up."

"Are you saying you saved me? By cutting me and sending me away to do your dirty jobs?"

"By finding you before anyone else did. You could have been killed."

"I have been."

Iason links his hands behind his back, clasping them together firmly. "There's no business without risk. I asked you to replace the man, no more."

Katze doesn't force the issue Iason has deftly sidestepped. He smirks, the brand-red scar snaking across his cheek like a living thing, distorting his features into a grimace. "Sure." He stubs the fag out in the ashtray. "Is there anything else?"

Iason stares at Katze's reflection in the window. "I miss you," he says bluntly.

"I miss you too," comes the quiet, prompt reply.

Iason turns, searching for a trace of mockery, anything but what he sees in Katze's ravaged face. "Come back," he says. "I'll find a reason-"

"Raoul won't be happy." Katze gets up, slightly stiff because his body remembers pain better than comfort, and a dull, pulsing ache has settled in his joints that doesn't fade.

"It's none of his business."

Katze huffs. "I'm not... equipped anymore."

"I'll take care of you. I'll be gentle. And it won't make a difference for you."

Katze stares at him for a second to figure out whether he is serious, then he manages a small laugh. "Trust you to bring the point home. Man, Iason..."

Iason frowns, irritation flickering in his eyes. "What _is_ it?"

"Never mind." Katze pushes the wallet across the table. "Pictures for you. You should find them entertaining – proof that I kept my end of the bargain. I thought you'd not appreciate them in your inbox." He flicks the wallet open. A photograph of a naked man, stretched out on his back and sinking into what looks like a grey mire, encased by planks. "The foundations of your new casino. I think they'll be extra strong."

Iason doesn't touch the picture. He hardly looks at it. "I am not interested in detail."

A small smile passes over Katze's lips. "No?"

Iason glares at him. "Why can't you come to terms with it? You're not the only one."

"Because I don't want to. And I never agreed to this."

"You belong here. Nothing needs to change."

Crossly, Katze shakes his head. "Everything. Everything has changed."

"Really?" Iason challenges. "You made your decision when you broke the encryption. You knew what you were doing, that there would be consequences. I was lenient then, I am lenient now. I did what I could, and you... do you really think you're better than Daryl?"

Katze grows hot as a flash of anger cuts through him. "It's different."

"Are you sure of that?" Iason pauses, watching Katze who holds his gaze for a moment before breaking away. He lights up again, unthinkingly, his movements quick and nervy. Iason steps around the table and reaches out. Katze flinches but catches himself. Iason touches the scar, tracing it slowly. "Who would have thought... you want to be special so badly?"

Katze closes his eyes because the smoke makes them burn, and he decides that it is not Iason's scent, his warmth, his hand that settles gently on the still healing wound that make him feel as if he's losing his grasp on reality. But it's just the hangover he has, waking hard from a dazed dream. The realisation that he is Iason's chattel, just like anything else on the household inventory he's been keeping. That, perhaps, he's never been anything else. And this, he thinks painfully, is the deepest cut he's suffered.

"Do you still love me?" Iason murmurs, his voice oddly brittle.

A long pause, the silence thick and black, before Katze, with an enormous effort, draws back and opens his eyes to meet Iason's frost-blue gaze. "Yes."

xxx

When Katze leaves, he sees Daryl kneeling in the hallway, just outside the door. He has a little mat there and a bottle with water. The boy is leaning against the wall, his eyes closed, hands folded in his lap. He starts from his dozing when the door hisses shut behind Katze. "Oh... I apologise," he says shakily, "is there anything you need?"

Katze pauses, looking down at him. "Is he hitting you?"

A smile passes across Daryl's tired face. "It could be worse."

"I'm sorry," Katze says, a twinge of guilt prodding him as habitual condescension - albeit a kind one - gives way to understanding, and understanding to more pain. He wants to apologize but he isn't sure how, or whether Daryl would even get it.

"Don't be," Daryl says. "I'd do it, if I could... I mean, if I had the guts. He's been talking about selling my contract. I don't want to go somewhere else."

"I could buy it." Katze pauses, then adds, "I owe you, anyway."

Daryl shakes his head. "He thought you'd try that. He said you'd be the last one who'd get it."

xxx

Katze does what Iason wants. He turns up at Iason's work apartment, and he starts using the new laptop that sits opposite Iason's computer. Sometimes Iason is late, and Daryl sees Katze into the office. Katze will spend his time lounging on the comfortable executive chair Iason has given him, smoking until the place is blue in spite of the air conditioning, and entertain himself by digging up information that he finds useful and that usually doesn't belong to him. Pre-emptive research, he calls it. Iason lets him, wilfully turning a blind eye.

Daryl avoids him, burying himself in the management of the household that is his task now, but one evening Katze catches a glimpse of his face when Daryl lets him into the apartment. A black bruise that he hasn't managed to cover up in time blooms across one cheekbone, and he has a split lip. Katze seizes Daryl's elbow, drags him to the desk and makes him sit down. Daryl sinks into a crouch on the floor by Katze's feet. Katze settles in his chair.

"Go on, talk to me," he says, realising only as he says it how much he sounds like Iason at that moment.

Daryl sighs softly. "There's nothing to say."

"And that?" Katze leans forward and runs his thumb over the boy's swollen face. "Spit it out, Daryl."

Daryl winces. "It'll pass," he murmurs.

"Sure. You could leave, you know."

Daryl draws up his shoulders. "How is it out there? I try to remember but I've forgotten so much... I left the orphanage when I was... seven, I think. I've been here for too long, and he's been good to me. To go outside Eos... it scares me."

"And he doesn't?"

"Not like that. It's kind of predictable. It was better while you were here. Perhaps he thinks I've blabbed."

Katze considers this for a moment. It surprises him, and then it doesn't, and he decides to make sure. "You knew?"

Daryl smiles faintly. "I've grown up here, I've had time to watch. He's changed since you left."

"And did you?"

"What? Talk? What would I get out of it? I'd be on the streets, or worse." Daryl shivers and wraps his arms around himself. "He isn't the worst owner."

Katze lights up and takes a deep pull. "I never said thank you. For stepping in that day, you know..."

"Self-preservation," Daryl replies. "It would have been horrible if he'd killed you."

"That would have been his right."

"Yes. But he'd have regretted it."

_And taken it out on whoever was in the wrong place at the wrong time,_ thinks Katze. "They... the Elite, they aren't like that," he says, shaking his head.

Daryl shrugs. "He's been talking to you in his sleep."

Katze smokes in silence for a while. He thinks that time hasn't been kind to Daryl, and that he won't be able to keep up appearances for much longer. As his beauty fades, or gets ruined, his lifespan as part of an Elite household is nearing its end, and they both know that the future is bleak for him.

Daryl shifts uncomfortably. "Would you like something to eat or some coffee?"

"Coffee," Katze says. "What will you do once he wants someone fresh?"

Daryl rises to his feet. He is a bit shaky but he manages a smile. "I don't know. I'll think about it when it happens."

And Katze wonders whether this is his chance to make good his debt, by using his business to offer the boy a new start, if only to reassure himself.  
He doesn't like to owe anymore.

xxx

Iason returns late that night. Katze has sent Daryl to sleep and made himself another pot of coffee. The fresh aroma mingles with the pong of stale smoke. When the door slides shut behind Iason, Katze takes his feet off the desk and puts the computer on the table. He gets up and watches Iason drop the cloak he wears when he is attending a public function or a political engagement. Iason yanks his gloves off, tosses them on the floor and unbuttons his uniform jacket as he rounds the desk and sits down. Katze pushes the coffeepot to the middle of the table.

"I'll get you a cup."

"Don't bother," Iason growls. "The wine's in the bedroom cabinet."

Katze gets a bottle and two glasses. Iason wrinkles his nose as his glance falls on the ashtray, packed with crimped stubs. Standing by Iason's side, Katze pours the wine.

Iason looks up at him. "You're doing well."

"I do what I can," Katze says, lingering a little because he feels warm so close to Iason, and the familiar scent – although mixed in with sweat and the cloying smells of strongly seasoned food – makes him lightheaded.

"Really?" Iason reaches out and grips Katze's wrist, the one with the tracer cuff. He drags him close until they are nose to nose, eye to eye. Katze breaks away first, staring at a point on the floor. A speck of ash, marring the perfect polish. He is bent awkwardly, half-leaning over Iason. Iason pulls him close, chest to chest. Katze keeps still. "Come back," Iason says, almost touching his lips.

Katze swallows hard. Iason tugs at him. Katze turns his head, just a little, and Iason's lips land on his scar instead of his mouth. Iason stills, then his mouth slides over the scar with great tenderness.

"Come back," he repeats, barely above his breath. "Come home to me, where you belong."

Katze props one hand against the backrest of Iason's chair so he doesn't slump into him. Iason's grip grows harder, clamping him down. "My home's elsewhere now," Katze says.

Iason lets go. "You're mine," he snaps.

Katze says nothing as he moves to his place opposite Iason and sits down.

"What is it with you?" Iason prods, brimming with tension.

"We can't undo what we've done, that's all."

"I had no choice," Iason says, unapologetic. "There were demands for an inquest into my political integrity, my business, talk about a vote of no confidence. There were rumours about tabling a motion in Council seeking to suspend me from office and appoint an interim ruler. There would have been a public investigation into my private affairs – you know what that would have meant for you, don't you?"

"So you cripple me and we all win? If that's a joke, I don't get it." Katze sags back in his chair and lights a fresh cigarette. "You ever wondered why?"

"Why what?"

"Why it came to a head just then."

Iason considers, staring at him. "What's your version?" he asks at last, unwillingly.

"Who would gain from making trouble for you?"

Iason shrugs. "Too many to rule out anyone."

Katze smiles thinly. _Motive, means, opportunity - it's an old hat, but it always works_, he thinks. "Who knew your business well enough to pick up on your penchant to buy goods with illegal imprints?"

Iason frowns. "You did."

"Just me? And who would have had access to you, to Jupiter, and to those fine friends of yours that were cooking up the motion? And who likes you enough to care if you mess up the rules? Somebody who thought they needed to protect you, someone who perhaps wiped out their tracks in your files by setting me up?"

The colour drains from Iason's face. Katze wonders edgily whether Iason will hit him, or worse.

Iason looks at him, his expression blank. "I saw you yesterday," he says, as if he'd not heard. "You have a new car – congratulations, it suits you." He won't acknowledge what Katze has told him, but Katze knows he's scored. There is no need to hammer it home, and he thinks that the idea would have been festering in Iason's mind already.

Katze meets Iason's eyes through swirls of smoke. The new car is a flash, brand red roadster of a famously expensive brand. "Yeah. Cars and money and all that..."

"Is it working?"

Katze blows a stream of smoke from his nostrils. "No idea. I got no time for the pull."

"Yes, I heard you've been busy. A spate of gangland killings followed by a surge in open files at the police department, and then it all dies down and everyone behaves again." Iason drums a nervy staccato with his fingernails on the glassdesk, just once. "You're using motorcycle messengers?"

Surprised, Katze almost chokes on his fag. "A local gang," he croaks. "I picked them up from the guy you asked me to rub out. They didn't care who paid them. I've vetted them and sometimes they run errands for me. Small deliveries, that sort of job. Did they tick you off?"

Iason gets up and steps to the glasswall that closes off his office from the sheer drop of Eos tower down to the streets of the city. "Who's their boss?"

"They're not on anyone's payroll, but their leader's name's Riki."

"Riki," Iason repeats thoughtfully. "The dark one?"

"That's his nick. Riki the Dark. You know him?"

"I saw him when you met up with him recently. In Midas. You could be more discreet."

"Hidden in plain sight," Katze says, puffs of smoke fluffing around each word. "Works fine for me."

Iason half turns, his semi-profile shaded by his long hair. "Procure him for me."

There is a stunned silence. Ash drips from Katze's cigarette onto his thigh, startling him from his stupor. "I can't," he says. "Riki's freeborn."

"That means he's no citizen. We can change his status."

"He'll say no. He has his own mind."

"Then change it!" Suddenly, Iason's tone cracks, frustration and anger welling to the surface. "And make sure of it!"

"He's got someone-"

"He'll appreciate being here," Iason cuts in, "once he gets to know Eos."

Katze wonders whether it's worth the risk, and then he decides not to say what Iason knows anyway – that he's asking for trouble. That Riki is well past the age of training for inventory items, and that he's too dark to be considered beautiful, or acceptable for an Elite household.

He has enough and closes the laptop down. Watching the screen darken, he feels bitterness fill his mind, a slow, deep current. "Sure," he says quietly. "Everyone's happy in Eos."

Iason's retort is swift and icy. "Yes. And I'm tired of sleeping alone."

xxx


	9. Chapter 9

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.**

xxx

It doesn't take much to set Riki up – a lonely street at night and two men walking, apparently deep in conversation. Iason finds it ironic that Katze has assigned Raoul the role of a prop and that Raoul is unaware of what has been planned, but it suits Iason's sense of humour and he is enjoying it.

Riki turns from the Midas main boulevard into a backstreet near his bolthole – the place where he shacks up when he's not with Guy. His hands stuffed into his pockets, he is hopping up onto the pavement and back down onto the dirty street as he is kicking an empty drinks can along. The road is lonely; the flipside of Midas' neon-glaring amusement quarters is not much different from Ceres, and the punters that seek their pleasures gambling at the casinos, drinking, and whoring at the brothels hardly ever venture outside the light into the areas where people like Riki are at home.

Riki is irritated because the client Katze told him to rendezvous for a handover isn't at the agreed place, a boarded up former corner shop.

Katze, loitering near the mouth of a sidestreet, lights a cigarette and leans against his flash red sportster. _It's all about the timing, _he thinks when Iason's chauffeur-driven limousine stops and Iason and Raoul get out of the car. Raoul is talking at Iason. Iason smiles at him, Raoul shuts his mouth and smiles back reluctantly, concern and relief mingling on his face.

Riki melts into the shadows of a house entrance as the two Elite wander past, Iason talking about an address he's been given by a business partner...

Katze goes over his assessment of Riki again and feels reassured. Temptation, a rebellious spirit, Riki's longing to prove something to Guy... It's all too much. _Not fair, _thinks Katze, _but then what is?_ Riki takes the bait so easily that it's somewhat disappointing; it fleetingly crosses Katze's mind that he'd never... and then he spits out and grinds the glob into the dusty street. Anger, sadness and spite wash through him. _Stupid boy, _he thinks, _Iason's right about them, all of them..._

xxx

Frustrated and hungry for the thrill, Riki tries his hand at mugging, but Raoul catches him and Iason watches Riki struggle in vain against the tall man's grip. Raoul easily wrenches Riki's arms back and pushes him to his knees, leaving him winded and in agony, unable to fight back. Iason lightly touches Raoul's elbow. "I'll take it from here," he says, "I think it will be enjoyable." Raoul, eager to humour him, leaves.

To Iason, Riki's angry challenge to take what he wants - if he can take it - is just another scene in this piece Katze has set up with his usual perfection. He revels in it – Riki's surprise at his touch that deftly manipulates Riki until he is overwhelmed. The shock in those wild dark eyes, and the way Riki gasps into Iason's kiss. The mix of pain and lust and anger. For a while, Iason feels alive. He is disappointed it's over so quickly, leaving him craving more, another fix, a fresh rush of this heat that almost, almost makes him forget...

xxx

Guy, perceptive and sober, doesn't say much when Riki comes home. He listens to him grinding his teeth in his sleep, and he lies awake in spite of being tired to the bones as he tries to make sense of the words Riki mumbles in his dreams.

When Katze turns up at the gas station a few days afterwards, Guy fills up the car, takes payment and stuffs the money into the pocket of his overall. Then he raps the passenger door. "Don't show up here again."

Katze gives him a slow once-over. "Says who?"

Guy holds his gaze unflinchingly. "I remember you," he says, his tone calm and sure. "Nobody here gets from an old banger to this," he nudges the white-wall tyre with his boot, "in the time it took you. I don't want people like you spoiling my business."

Katze gives him a distorted smirk. "I'm just buying your services, mate."

"I'm not your mate. Buy whatever you want elsewhere. There's lots of choice in Midas." Guy steps back, nodding at Katze. "Get bent."

xxx

Iason thinks it's funny that Katze's been bossed around by someone like Guy. He is curious, restless, stirred-up, and he suprises Katze when he orders him to go back with a question, an offer that Iason thinks is irresistible.

"He told me to fuck off," Katze reports when he returns, his tone dry and cross. "He said he's been asked that before, and he seemed to think it was a bit of a joke. I'm not saying I told you so but I was thinking it." He stands a step behind Iason, near the panorama window of Iason's office suite, his hands linked in front. He is wearing his off-white coat and black gloves and has stuck a pair of mirrored shades up into his flaming hair. A thick swath of it hides most of the scar that he has plastered over with a thick layer of pancake makeup for good measure.

"He didn't know who he was talking to," Iason replies.

_The head of the Elite, _thinks Katze, _through his Ceres kingpin._

"I don't think it would have made a difference," he says, recalling the anger in Guy's eyes, the crowbar in his hands, and Riki – squatting on the oily floor of the garage where he was putting new brake pads on an old car – looking on. The radio had been blaring, rock music, too loud for Riki to hear what was said, but Katze thought that there might have been an opening, a spark of interest and curiosity, perhaps more. Something he could nurture into a fully-blown fixed idea...

Iason touches the glass, drums a quick staccato on it. "Interesting," he murmurs, his gaze drifting out over the light-glittering city.

"He'd be more trouble than Riki."

Iason stares in the direction of Ceres, the dark belt of the slums that borders the bright streets to the south of the city and the smog-veiled industrial areas that never sleep. Tanagura has grown, a giant maw that swallows hungrily, its belly expanding to accommodate the former satellite cities in areas one to nine. It's arms begin to reach around, light spilling into the dark plains beyond, new streets, new towers of glass and steel, new money gorging it. But Ceres lies in blackness, the old mining district that now is nothing but a ravaged desert, the ruins of Dana Bahn a recalcitrant reminder of the past, a festering mole on Tanagura's shiny skin of perfection.

It annoys Iason, a persistent, scratchy irritation that he has not been able to erase this mark of defeat. That Ceres still offers resistance, and that Dana Bahn has become a name that's said in awe, or anger, but never without emotion.

"Who do they think they are?" he says, as if talking to himself.

Katze lights up. "Can I go now?"

Iason gives him a glance over the shoulder. "And you?"

Katze stares at him, and for a moment they are both silent before the redhead breathes out a long stream of smoke. "I am myself," he says.

xxx

He doesn't wait; he creates his opportunity a few days later when he sends a message to Riki requiring a pickup, without Bison in tow. Riki doesn't talk to anyone about it because he knows what Guy would say, and that perhaps Guy would be right. So Riki decides he'll sniff it out without risking anyone else's neck. Professional pride, stupidity or instinct – Katze isn't clear what makes Riki turn up at the dead drop, not far from where he encountered Iason and Raoul.

Katze waits leaning against his shiny red car, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, his hands in the pockets of his coat. Riki pulls his bike up and puts his foot down on the kerb. He's riding without helmet, and his hair is messed up by the wind. When he pushes up the dark goggles he is wearing, they leave an outline of dust and sweat that frames his eyes. He slowly revs the engine, making it growl. He looks ready for flight or fight.

Katze raises his hands, palms out, and smiles. "Hi."

Riki glowers at him. "Funny."

"What?"

Riki shrugs. "I thought it would be you."

Katze's eyes grow narrow. "Your boyfriend, he's pretty sharp."

"Leave him alone."

"Then tell him not to mess with me."

"He's got nothing to do with this. What's that job you have for me?"

"There's an auction scheduled at the central auction house in Mistral. The largest trade fair for inventory items, live toys and related merchandise. A lot of well-heeled customers will be there."

"What are you getting at?"

"I want you to deliver a message to someone."

"What message?"

"_The deal is sealed_."

"What's it mean?"

Katze flicks the spent cigarette onto the tarmac and steps on it. He smiles. "You trust me?"

Riki snorts. "Why should I?"

"See?" Katze reaches into the inside of his coat.

Riki tenses, his hand tightening on the clutch, the revs of the engine powering up.

Katze pulls out a fat wad of cash and holds it up. "That's for starters. You work for me, it gets better." He pauses, watching Riki who is sucking his lower lip between his teeth, then lets a low whistle escape. "Enough?" Katze prompts, stepping closer.

Riki kicks the gear lever into neutral and lets go of the clutch. When he stretches his hand out to take the money, Katze holds fast. "That'll buy your lover his new workshop and a flat, perhaps in HerBay or Mistral. You can do this job and quit, go live the tame life. Or you work for me and get out of the slums for good. I did it, you can do it."

Riki yanks at the cash, and Katze lets go. He takes his cigarettes from his pocket an flips open the lid of the box to pick a fresh fag. Amid the white cigarettes, Riki catches a glimpse of two black ones. Katze sees his eyes widen and meets his gaze with a thin smile.

"You did it?" Riki rasps. "You're from Ceres?"

"Born and bred," Katze says. "Here's your choice, rat."

Riki swallows hard. "Fuck you," he murmurs, pushing the money into his vest.

Katze shrugs. "Just be there."

xxx


	10. Chapter 10

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.**

xxx

Riki doesn't hear from Katze for a long time. He shares out most of the money with the rest of Bison, telling them it was for a particularly important job. They don't ask much, and he feels a bit bad about lying to them, but when Guy puts his and Riki's official share away, Riki thinks about the amount he's held back, about leaving Ceres, the plans he and Guy have talked about. He decides to ignore the twitch of a bad conscience.

The gang has nothing to do. The money melts away. Norris' pretty face has secured him a part-time job, working the bar at a nightclub just outside of Midas, on the border to Ceres. Luke isn't happy about it and insists in taking him there and collecting him at the end of a shift. He tells Norris that sometimes people disappear without a trace and turn up as livestock at toy auctions, or worse. Norris laughs, but it sounds uncomfortable, and after he's had to fend of a small group of pushy customers, waylaying him after his shift ends, he stops arguing with Luke about it. A couple of times, Syd comes along too, just to make sure. Norris is half-embarrassed, half glad about the attention that gets him, but the signal it sends is clear – marked territory, don't cross.

During the day, when Norris holes up at the old steelyard, Luke goes to wash expensive cars in Midas. He's paid by the piece, by the casinos and hotels who'll bill the owners. Sometimes the takings are good, other days he's too late and someone else's taken the work, and it gripes him because he wants to talk Norris into leaving the bar job, but Norris earns more, and things stay as they are.

Syd gets up before daybreak to loiter at the trunk road into the main industrial area, where Tanagura's heavy industry is concentrated with foundries, cement mills and chemical plants. Scores of men in working gear wait every morning to be hired, loaded onto lorries, and carted off for a few hours of bone-breaking, badly paid work.

Once, Syd returns, dirty and exhausted, to the steelyard shack that passes for their home and swears he'll never go anywhere near a factory again. His hair is singed off on one side of his head, and the skin of his face is flaking and raw, his eyes inflamed. A flash explosion at a carbide furnace where he's been jobbing, three men burned up by the white-hot stuff shooting from the blast furnace.

"They didn't even stop production," he says, "and the ambulance turned up an hour later because there was haggling about who'd pay for it."

"Shouldn't there be machines doing that sort of stuff these days," asks Luke, hugging the shivering Norris close. Syd just snorts and hurries to hurtle into the black oblivion of drugs and booze. He stays like that for a few days, refuelling whenever he feels he's starting to sober up. When they run out of money to buy stuff, he resurfaces, and some time later, when his hands are steady enough again, he's back on the trunk road, flanked by factories and soaring stacks, and clamouring for work along with masses of other men, their faces tired, the will to fight sucked out of them a long time ago.

With the need for food and money pressing, and work schedules that never agree, there is little opportunity for all of Bison to meet and ride.

xxx

Riki helps at the garage, fixing up old cars. Guy seems content, less tired and apprehensive now that there are no errands to run and no deliveries to make. Sometimes he and Riki go on a spin on their bikes, just for fun. A few times they end up at Dana Bahn, wandering through the endless corridors, exploring the ruins of the old station. Their nights get busier for a while until frustration begins to take its toll on Riki.

"Is that it?" he grouches one evening, when they're through and he lies sprawled on the bed, smoking and staring at the off-white ceiling. The plaster has cracks, the paint is peeling, and in the corners are cobwebs covered in soot.

Guy leans over him and kisses him. "What?"

Riki shrugs, meeting his eyes for a moment before flitting away. "Being stuck here, forever."

Guy gently strokes Riki's belly that's sticky with sweat and what they've just done. "Doesn't have to be," he says, drawing a glistening circle on Riki's stomach. He admires the golden tan and frowns at his own pale skin before pulling up the blanket to cover both Riki and himself.

"No? And where would we go?"

"Wherever we want. I've started saving again."

"I hate that," says Riki through a puff of smoke. "Everything is later, wait, be patient. Why not now? Why do we always have to wait for something or someone?"

"Because we were born here," Guy says, but it doesn't sound nasty. "It doesn't matter. We'll make it. It'll take a while, but we will. We don't need anyone if we just keep working. Move somewhere nicer, have our own place, run our own business again, just better."

"That's gonna take ages."

Guy draws him close. His voice is quiet and sure when he says, "I've been thinking about taking in extra work. Speeding up a bit, sort of. I could put another two cars through each month."

Riki lets go of a deep breath as some of his unrest melts away under Guy's touch. "I'm such an asshole," he grumbles, his tone thick with embarrassment.

"Hey." Guy puts his hand on Riki's chest. "It's much easier when you're around, working with me. It's great."

Riki bites his lip. "That guy with the red car, what did he want?"

"You know him?"

A tiny break before Riki says, "Seen him around. With that car, really..."

"He bought fuel, is all," says Guy.

"You were pretty pissed at him."

"Okay, not just fuel. He wanted me-" Guy breaks off, his cheeks colouring. He rolls onto his back and bunches the blanket over his chest. "He thought he could buy me."

Riki scowls. "Huh?"

"As a toy. To live in Eos."

There is no outburst, no protest from Riki, and Guy turns his head to find Riki is staring at him curiously, a spark of something in his dark eyes. Guy doesn't know what to make of this. "I sent him packing," he says.

"Cool," Riki says, but it sounds lame.

Guy sniffs. "He offered big bucks. Said someone high up the ladder wanted me in his collection, at least for a while. He was giving me a lot of bullshit. That I should not throw the chance away before talking to you. Why did he say that?"

"Because he could tell we fuck?" Riki offers, suddenly cranky. "Anyway, I heard they only _watch_ their toys. Can't get it up themselves. Weird." And then, hoisting himself up so he can weigh Guy down with his body and bury him in an embrace and a shower of kisses, he murmurs, "I don't want you to leave."

Guy, looking up at him and melting into the liquid black of Riki's eyes, as he always does when they are together like this, hugs him tight. "Why should I? I have you. And I'm nobody's toy."

xxx

Katze catches Riki by the cornershop near the garage where Riki's gone to buy cigarettes and a few cans of beer. The redhead is on foot, leaning against Riki's bike when he comes out of the shop.

"Guy's gonna have your guts," Riki comments as he slings the sixpacks onto the seat and fastens them with some thick elastic straps. "What do you want?"

"He wanted to hit me over the head last time we met," Katze laughs, but his eyes stay cool, observant.

Riki huffs. "Weren't you lucky you got away?"

"He told you?"

"I told you to leave him alone," Riki snaps. "Don't you get it?"

"Get what?"

Riki folds his arms and glares at him. "He'll never agree, and he hates those stupid dolls the Elite keep."

"Does he know any? Toys, or Elite?"

Riki blushes angrily. Before he can bite, Katze holds up two fingers and snaps. "Ah, of course, he never got out of here. Silly me..."

"Yeah, stupid you. C'mon, I haven't all day, why're you hanging about here?"

Katze steps back and stuffs his hands into his pockets. "The auction I told you about, it's tonight. The guy is one of the white Elite – just go for the tallest one."

"And you?"

Katze gives him a soft, sly smile. "I'm too well known there. They won't let me in."

Riki yanks his bike off the centrestand. "Okay," he throws at Katze before reason and instincts can stop him, "I'll do it. The money, was that all I get for this job?"

Katze considers him for a moment through narrowed eyes, before his smile widens. The scar pulls at his mouth, making it lopsided, and Riki feels creeped out. Suddenly he just wants to leave, urgently, but Katze reaches into the chestpocket of his coat and pulls out another wad of cash. His left hand is sheathed in a black leather glove, the right one is bare. He spits on his fingertips. Too quickly for Riki's eyes to follow, he counts out a few large bills, and then steps swiftly into Riki's personal space. They're almost chest to chest now, Katze a good deal taller, staring down at Riki who glares back at him, having to tilt up his chin to meet Katze's strange yellow eyes.

"Here," Katze presses the banknotes against Riki's chest with his flat, gloved palm, pushing him back against the bike as he speaks. "Everything has it's price, right? I'm willing to pay. And you?"

"Fuck you," Riki hisses, stubbornly holding his place even though he has to reach back and prop his hand onto the fuel barrel to keep his balance. He can smell Katze's aroma – sharp and bitter, of cigarettes and strong aftershave. It makes him sick.

Katze leans in a little more, his nose almost touching Riki's. "Don't forget the message."

"I'll remember," Riki grinds out.

Katze steps back suddenly. "Every word. It's important."

Riki scrambles to catch the banknotes as they flutter to the ground. He rolls his eyes. "Every bloody word."

"Then," Katze says, mock-saluting him, "good luck, rat."

xxx

Riki takes the beer to the garage and puts it on the workbench, wondering what to tell Guy. The truth, he thinks, that would be good. But when he sees Guy busy, raising the latest old banger he's taken in onto the platform in the workshop, he just hugs him from behind, so firmly that Guy gasps and laughs. "Wanna crush me?"

He turns and kisses Riki on the cheek. Guy's face is smudged with dirt and oil, his overall grimy, but his eyes are clear and full of light. Riki gives him a nervous smile. "As if."

Guy pulls back, still clutching a wrench, and wipes the sweat off his brow. "You staying in?"

"I have a small job," Riki says, unease churning in his guts. "Out in Midas. Shouldn't take too long."

"Oh." Guy seems disappointed but he doesn't complain. Instead he nods. "Just be careful."

"Sure," Riki says. He clonks up the metal staircase that leads up to their den above the garage. The money burns in his pocket, and he takes it out, recounting it, his breath hitching when he realises just how much Katze has given him. It doesn't feel right for passing on a message, and he starts feeling queasy. But he's accepted, and it is too late to pull out, he thinks, he's given his word, and he's worried about Guy and what he has said about Katze's offer. After a heartbeat of hesitation, he stuffs the money under the pillow of the bed, yanks his leather jacket off the peg behind the door, and leaves. Guy has turned the radio up and tuned into a rock channel. He waves at Riki.

Riki waves back before mounting his bike and roaring off.

xxx


	11. Chapter 11

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.  
Additional note: Some clearer references to male/male intimacy (although no graphic descriptions, in keeping with policy and my own 'feel' for this story).**

xxx

The auction is busy, just as Katze has said – Riki can see traders and customers, all Elite, thronging around spotlit small podiums with unclothed young men or women on them who are shown off to the curious bidders. The noise is deafening. The high-speed monotone of the auctioneers criss-crosses the hall, interrupted by shouted bids, curses, laughter. Each completed bid is sealed by a rap of the auctioneer's gavel before money and goods change hands. Some of the buyers put tracer bracelets on their purchases immediately, others rely on the delivery services offered by the auction houses. Bars and food stalls stretch along one side of the hall, and the smell of expensive perfume and cigarettes, sweat and alcohol laces the air.

Riki is flushed with the thrill of being in this place and fuelled by the desire to get this job over and done with. _Just one more, _he thinks, gathering his determination, _and that's it, we'll leave..._

He finds it difficult to make his way through the crowds because he is shorter than most of them, and he gets pushed and shoved around but he still manages to look around. Expensively dressed men, with the flawless complexion and beautiful hair of Elites, sit at the bars, talking and drinking, with their toys crouching at their feet. Some of the young men and women are hung with jewellery, some wear collars leashed to their owners' wrists or belts. Riki thinks that they look like dogs, their bodies exposed to everyone who cares to steal a glance, but their eyes are arrogant and their faces haughty. He finds that weird and ridiculous.

He realises that there are few like him – wiry, short and dark – and they are all working, washing dishes, sweeping floors, collecting rubbish and changing binbags. "Hey, mate, let me take this," he says to a dark-haired youth in a grey apron and grabs the rubbish bag he is carrying. Without waiting for a reply, Riki weasels through the mass of fair, beautiful people towards a small flight of stairs that he thinks will lead to the service area.

And then he spots Iason. Taller than anyone else, he stands near a small door at one end of the hall, another blond man by his side. Riki recognises Raoul as the one he tried to rob. The memory of that evening assaults him, burning through him with anger and shame.

Briefly, he considers ditching Katze's job in favour of picking pockets and running, but he is suddenly afraid. He understands enough of Katze's offer to Guy to worry about it, and he feels guilty even though he doesn't know why. Uncomfortable and more nervous than usual, he draws a deep breath and plunges forward.

Iason has watched Riki since he walked past the security guards by the entrance to the auction hall. Before Raoul catches on, Iason turns towards him with a smile, seeking his gaze. "I am glad we could talk," he says.

Raoul, after a small pause, nods, his gaze softening as he meets Iason's eyes. "Yes, me too."

Iason quickly checks his watch. "I have a meeting..."

"I'll leave you to it," Raoul says, eager to oblige. "I have some business to attend myself."

xxx

Riki gets on his tiptoes in an attempt to get his bearings, then shoves past Elite and toys, workmen and traders towards the end of the hall where he's seen Iason. He is sure that the message is for him.

Iason is gone when Riki arrives at the door. It stands slightly open, and the room behind it is dark. Riki drops the bag and reluctantly glances around. Nobody seems to pay any attention to him. He lays his hand on the doorknob and pushes a little. The door swings open without a sound. Cool air washes over Riki, the smell of damp concrete and dust, and a trace of something else – a clean, sharp scent that reminds him of something, but he can't quite place it.

And then he feels as if someone's watching, and when he turns he meets Raoul's green gaze, across a group of men that are groping and discussing a newly purchased toyboy. Raoul is pushing through the crowd, and a jolt of panic makes Riki jump. Unthinkingly, he slips into the dark room and quickly closes the door. Something clicks.

He freezes when he is blinded by white light. He raises his hand to shade his eyes and blinks. Bare concrete walls, no windows, an empty box, and Iason, splendid in his uniform.

Iason looks at Riki, a spark of amusement in his gaze. "Well?"

Riki feels his throat tighten. "The deal's sealed," he croaks, images of Iason crashing through him that make him sweat.

"Ah," Iason says, and Riki feels as if he's losing the ground beneath his feet as he watches a slow smile spread on Iason's lips. "Very well then."

Riki, relieved that he got it right, steps back until he can feel the door and gropes for the handle. "Okay, that's all, I'm going."

"I have something for you." Iason crosses the room and leans in. He has to stoop a little to touch Riki's ear with his lips. "Aren't you curious?"

Riki flattens himself against the door and turns his head away. He can feel his guts churn – temptation, fear, nerve, shot through with sudden anger at being toyed with. "No."

"Strange." Iason strokes Riki's arm, from his shoulder to his wrist. "Are you scared?"

"You wish," Riki spits, trying to wriggle sideways, away from Iason whose closeness he can feel like a living weight. "Look, you got your freakin' message. I gotta go."

Iason's fingers quickly and firmly circle Riki's wrist, his thumb caressing Riki's pulse. With the other hand he reaches into his pocket and holds up a tracer bracelet. "I don't think so."

Riki feels sick, heat and chill washing through him as he gets it at last. He presses the handle down but the door doesn't move. He shakes it, in vain, and then he sees the tiny red light, blinking from an electronic lock on the top corner of the doorframe. He starts to panic. "Hey, what's wrong with you? Let me out now, dammit!"

"You took the money," Iason says, "if you want out, you'll have to pay me back."

A firm rap; the lock disengages. Before Riki can answer, he is shoved back, towards Iason, and Raoul steps in. He considers the scene for a moment, his expression blank, before meeting Iason's eyes. "I thought you might need me."

Iason, without missing a beat, snaps the bracelet on Riki's wrist while he is distracted, grabs his shoulder, and without effort pushes him to his knees. Riki gasps in pain, too shocked to shout for help, and deep down knowing none would come. Iason gives Raoul a soft smile. "I'd be grateful if you could register him for me."

And Raoul, for reasons he prefers to bury where they can't trouble him, doesn't protest. "I'll do what I can," he says. "You know I always will."

Iason reaches out and briefly touches Raoul's hand. "I won't forget it."

xxx

Katze is waiting for them at the back of the auction hall with Iason's car. He gets out from behind the wheel to open the door for Iason. Putting his hand on the top of Riki's head, Iason bundles him into the back and then settles on the passenger seat.

"Hi rat," Katze says, glancing at Riki who crouches on the soft leather seat, his hands clenched between his knees, his shoulders hunched. "You weren't cheap. Hope you're worth it."

Something black and thick wells up in Riki but he bites his tongue. He thinks of Guy and the way Katze is looking at him now, a strange expression in those yellow eyes, something cold and hard and an odd shade of something else. Pity perhaps, but that's impossible, thinks Riki, people like Katze have nothing like that.

Katze slides into the car and, without asking permission, lights a cigarette. "Home?" he asks Iason through a breathful of blue smoke.

Iason leans back and closes his eyes. "Yes," he says, contentment in his tone, "home."

xxx

Iason tries. Katze, coming and going as usual, can see that he's trying hard to do things in a different way, but in the end, Katze thinks, Iason can't jump his shadow any more than the cat can change its stripes.

Riki can't accept his fate. He feels tricked and he hates the idea of becoming somebody's possession – a thing to be bought, used, sold or discarded at the whim of someone else. He recalls his talk with Guy at Dana Bahn on their first night together, and he feels cold to the marrow. He picks fights with Daryl about the food, his bed, his clothes, until Iason makes Daryl kneel and undress in front of him. Riki stares at the weals of broken skin that stripe Daryl's back. Iason presses a bamboo cane into Riki's hand. "Five," he orders, his tone calm, his expression cool. Riki shakes his head. Iason takes the cane and hits. Daryl makes no sound. He coils up until his brow touches his knees, wincing at each slow, deliberate stroke. When Iason is done, he drops the cane and walks out to work. Riki never fights with Daryl again.

Instead, he refuses to go anywhere with Iason. To bring him to heel, Iason takes away his clothes for weeks, puts a steel collar with a chain on him that he locks to the desk in his office, and invites Raoul and other Elite for business meetings with Riki crouching naked at their feet. He makes Riki touch himself. He is there, watching, when Riki wakes up in the morning, his body's urges clearly visible, and holds him until Riki has done what Iason whispers into his ear. He is calm but implacable, without an obvious desire to hurt but also without the shred of a doubt that what he does is his absolute right. It is a mix Riki can't cope with. It confuses him, makes him mad and helpless at the same time.

Iason stays patient. Watching, veering between annoyed, curious and amused, as – slowly, but unavoidably – Riki starts to wear thin under the constant assault on his dignity. Iason doesn't beat him. Instead, he punishes Riki through the withdrawal of food, warmth, and attention; rewarding him when he complies with Iason's demands. Small favours, a pat on the head, the permission to walk upright, to eat his food with his fingers instead of slurping it from a bowl on the floor, or receiving a blanket or clothes to cover his body...

Riki feels like crying when he realises what he's become, unable even to vent his grief and frustration. Pain rips through him every time he thinks of Guy, and of Katze's offer that he now believes has been a threat. He wonders whether Guy knows, how to get a message to him, how to tell him not to worry, to wait because Riki will return to him once this nightmare is over. He tells himself, like a mantra, that Iason will tire of him once he finds something better to play with, something fresher, more willing and less ugly. In the meanwhile, he tries to become more compliant, to please Iason, to perhaps move him to let him go.

Yet Iason's interest, if anything, becomes more intense, and Riki can't fit in with the rest of the Elite's toys; his pride gets in the way and his street smarts clash with their ignorance. They gang up on him, jealous of his position with Iason, their idle minds full of venomous gossip. Iason listens to Riki's complaints and does nothing. Riki, provoked and driven to desperation, loses it. Stoked into rebellion again, he embarrasses Iason in front of a curious audience of Elite, by refusing to perform with other toys at an erotic show. Instead, he spoils Raoul's property by screwing one of his prized toys backstage. The girl is fresh from the Academy where expensive prime inventory items are created. Challenged by one of the boys, another prime toy who's been bullying him, Riki snaps and smashes the boy's face. At that point, he is blissfully ignorant of what he's done beyond causing a scandal. The boy is sold off quickly and Iason's insurance company pays up, but Raoul is more than cross, his displeasure slopping into his still tense relations with Iason.

xxx

Iason doesn't take it well. Off the public stage, he drops his perfect persona without compunction or restraint; he becomes ill-tempered and cranky. Katze bears his moods with endless patience, listening to his rants about Riki with cool interest.

"You know what he needs?" he asks one evening, when Iason pauses his frustrated tirade to pour himself some wine.

Iason glances at Katze over the edge of the glass. "I've tried everything."

Katze raises his brows, just enough for Iason to notice. "Really." He powers his laptop down and gets up. "Well, in that case... perhaps it was a mistake."

Iason stares at him. "I could have him cut for his insolence. At least it would make him tame."

Katze lights up and breathes a stream of smoke from his nostrils. "Come on. What do you really want to do with him?"

Iason's lips thin as Katze meets his gaze at last, those strange eyes intense, unflinching, focused on him with absolute clarity. For a moment, there is nothing else.

Katze gives him a soft smirk. "And what's stopping you?"

xxx

Iason mulls over what has been on his mind from the day he has asked Katze to reel Riki in. And in the end, he decides to try the unspeakable.

"No more shows," he promises when Riki folds his arms and shakes his head. "And more freedom. You've worked for Katze before. You can work with him again."

"Wow," Riki says bitterly, "I think that got me here in the first place."

Iason steps close. He's without his cloak and uniform, only in a soft black suit that contrasts strikingly with his hair and skin. He smells of wine and aftershave, and for the first time since Riki's known him, his features soften as he raises his hand, pulls off his glove, and slowly strokes Riki's cheek. "Is it that bad?" Iason asks. "To be here, with me?"

"I want to go..." _Home, _Riki thinks and gasps as Iason's hand slides over his chest and arm, brushes over his middle and settles on his backside.

"I'll let you," Iason says, drawing him close. "Just think about it a little longer."

"You'll let me go?" Riki murmurs, his breathing deepening when he feels Iason's body against his own.

"Later," Iason replies, "If you still want to leave."

Riki starts when he feels the firm flesh of Iason's groin. His eyes widen. "I thought you didn't..."

"Try me," Iason says softly, leaning down for a deep kiss. And Riki stops fighting at last.

xxx

They sleep with each other, and when Riki squirms beneath him, Iason feels the bliss of release for the first time since Katze has left. It's blasting through him like a fix through a recovering addict.

Incredulous until the very moment that Iason takes possession of him, Riki doesn't quite understand why his body responds. He is shocked by how Iason makes him feel – the intensity of desire where he thinks he should feel disgust or worse; pain that sparks lust; the white-hot fire that tears through him, makes him blind and breathless when Iason is with him.

He doesn't struggle when Iason slips the ring on him. Smooth, burnished metal, it encircles Riki's privates, sufficiently tight to stay put even when Riki is soft, yet wide enough to avoid damage to the tender flesh. Iason kneads him softly, leaning in for a deep kiss. Riki, his body still throbbing with what Iason's done to him, rises into his touch, moaning into Iason's mouth. And when Iason mounts him once more, Riki lets go at last. He abandons himself to Iason's hunger until grief and discomfort, past and future are swept into oblivion.

xxx


	12. Chapter 12

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.**

xxx

Iason keeps his promise. There are no more shows for Riki. Iason takes him into his bed, and Riki is sinking fast. Starved for closeness, torn from his own life and rootless in Iason's world, he tries to refuse Iason's touch and can't. He is deeply ashamed, he hates it and he craves it, and he pines for Guy even when he spills himself for Iason. But he can feel himself change. He is troubled by the idea of going back to Ceres, the dirt and the hardship, and although he longs for Guy, their nights together seem tame and stale to him now.

And when Iason joins him at night, Riki can sense that Iason is changing, too.

xxx

Iason relaxes his control over Riki's movements. He takes him to live at an apartment he owns at a glass-and-steel penthouse tower overlooking Apatia. He removes Riki's tracer bracelet, allowing him to roam Eos and the tower at Apatia at will. The ring around Riki's intimate parts stays. The metal chafes a bit at the beginning, and it takes him some time getting used to it when he finds that he cannot remove the ring without the code that Iason has. Riki is marked, discreetly but irrevocably, as an inventory item, registered as someone's possession. From being someone, he has become something without autonomy. He finds it embarrassing and humiliating when he realises that it's still obvious. Everyone in Eos will know he's wearing the thing that clutches his private parts so intimately – someone like Riki wouldn't be allowed to set foot into the heart of Tanagura without being somebody's property, and he doesn't have the telltale tracer bracelet of the neutered servants, like Daryl. Yet when Iason plays with him, Riki soon discovers that the constricting metal sometimes hurts, but that it also makes him last longer, and that it is the kind of pain that arouses him. So he puts up with it, and Iason's excitement when they are together becomes his consolation.

xxx

It doesn't take Riki long to explore the places he is allowed to go in Eos and at the penthouse. Soon he realises that almost all of its inhabitants are 'companions' kept by Elite. Most of them are a good deal younger than Riki, and none of them as dark as he. When they aren't occupied, they gather at the bar or restaurant on the top floor, or on the roof garden that has a swimming pool, gym and spa. The upper levels of the building are occupied by several cinema screens, a theatre and a live music lounge and private club.

Daryl drags Riki onto a guided tour, talking about how comfortable the place is, about beauty treatments and pampering, about the food that is served at the restaurant that caters exclusively to the tenants of the house and their guests. It is exorbitantly expensive, but to the fashionable young men and women this doesn't matter; they never have to worry about money because their owners settle their bills.

Riki, who stubbornly sticks with his black clothes and biker boots, stands out like a sore thumb. He rifles through the complimentary magazines that are delivered regularly to the bar and distributed on the tiny tables while he's waiting for Daryl to order drinks – a can of beer for Riki, sparkling wine for the boy. He stares at the glossy images of doll-like models touting new scents, showing off the latest fashions in clothes, hair and make-up. There are articles on where to buy the best jewellery and how to offer the best erotic display to a demanding owner. Advice on positions and lube, how to keep the interest of a spoilt audience, performance enhancing pills and lotions, what to do with one, two, or more partners onstage at shows, how to deal with other toys and advice on manners and etiquette...

When Daryl gets back and tells him there's no canned beer, Riki shakes his head. "I wanna go. This place makes me sick."

There isn't much else to do. Riki goes to the gym most mornings, working himself into a sweat before anyone else turns up, and spends most of his remaining time at the apartment. He avoids contact with anyone apart from Daryl, and most of the other residents of the tower give him a wide berth. He knows gossip will run rampant, but he doesn't care. From the balcony that runs along two sides of the apartment, he has a great view across most of Tanagura. While Daryl sits on the couch in the lounge and watches television, or goes about his household chores or does the books for the household on the computer Iason has had installed, Riki crouches in a corner of the balcony. He smokes, drinks expensive bottled beer that Daryl orders online for him, and stares across the sea of glass and concrete, to the dark, rugged area beyond Mistral. The alcohol is not enough to numb him. His hands and mind idle, Riki has too much time to think. He wonders whether Guy has been looking for him.

xxx

Iason keeps his business strictly separate from his time with Riki. When he calls at the penthouse, Riki will do what he wants – service him, sleep with him – if only to burn off his restless energy. Sometimes, when Iason can't make it, he will call, and Riki will travel with Daryl, to be at Iason's beck and call at the office suite, or accompany him to a social dinner, the opening of a gallery or museum. Riki spends his time watching people – Elite, toys, an army of servants. He can't help comparing, and he becomes more aware of the treatment of other toys by their owners. It begins to dawn on him that there is something special about the way Iason keeps him. Riki wonders, unwillingly, whether he ought to be grateful. It makes him feel cold inside.

Often, it will be Katze who turns up to fetch him. Riki tries to hold on to his grudge against the redhead, but he thinks of Guy and keeps his thoughts to himself.

"You still going to Ceres?" he asks once as Katze swerves sharply into the evening traffic. Bands of light along the highway, the chasms of the streets between gleaming skyscrapers, the faint crescents of the twin moons filling the darkening sky. High above Tanagura gleams a single star.

Katze lights two cigarettes and offers one to Riki. "Why's that, rat?"

In the fleeting shadows, Riki can't see his face. He accepts the fag and takes a deep pull. "I just wondered..."

Katze programs the car autopilot and leans back to smoke in silence. "Quit it. You're here now."

"Does Guy know?"

"Would you like him to know?"

Riki swallows and sags back into the soft leather seat. For a while, he stares out of the tinted window. "No," he says at last, barely audible.

xxx

Riki starts to envy the valets that park and take care of the expensive cars of the Elite. He is jealous of anyone with a task, even Daryl, and he is bored out of his mind. His only vent is sleeping with Iason, and it's like a drug he needs more and more. It's filling his body with unrest and his mind with images that keep him charged and needy, slowly blotting out everything else.

During the endless hours he spends alone and idle, and when Daryl doesn't need the television, Riki searches the channels for porn and sports. There is a lot of the first and little of the latter, there are soaps and advertisements, yet there are no news channels. Once Riki hits on a sports programme transmitting from a bike race. He watches for a while, but he can't bear it and turns it off.

He sits still for a while, listening to the silence of the apartment. It's suffocating him, and the need for air overwhelms him. He decides to go for a walk, amazed when he finds that he can leave the penthouse without an alarm going off somewhere and without anyone paying attention. He stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets and wonders how far he'd be able to go before Iason would notice.

For a while, he just stands on the curb, watching the passing traffic. A block down the road, a bike is parked on a forecourt. It has a pizza-delivery box on the backseat. For a heartstopping moment, Riki thinks he recognises the driver, but when the man takes off his helmet to walk into the kiosk, Riki deflates. The man's hair is black, like his own.

xxx

That evening Riki tries to refuse Iason. Iason makes an effort, but when nothing works, he simply takes what he wants. There is no fight and he doesn't need to use much force because Riki, tired of struggling, lets him have his way, but he keeps his eyes closed and his face turned away. There is no enjoyment in it for either of them – Riki tries to blot out what is happening, and Iason makes a point of manipulating him until he can't resist anymore. Riki, jarred to tears, thinks of Guy, and he bites his tongue to keep from screaming Guy's name when he comes at last in Iason's fist. When it's over, Iason gets dressed and leaves, without a word or a glance back at Riki, or at Daryl who has been standing by the bedroom door in terrified silence, a tray with cooling coffee in his hands.

Riki wipes the blood from his mouth and lies still, spreadeagled, staring blankly at the ceiling until he can sense Daryl approach. He listlessly wipes at the cooling stickiness on his belly. "I'm okay," he says when he catches Daryl's shy, worried gaze. "Just a bit roughed up. That's what you get for being stupid..."

He lets Daryl fuss over him, bathe him and wrap him up in bed like a small child. He doesn't say anything, and when Daryl leaves him alone at last, he walks out onto the balcony to stare across the lights of the city to where darkness marks the streets of Ceres.

He can feel the cool night breeze on his naked body. He can feel every bruise and tear. He thinks of Guy, and sinks into a crouch, wrapping his arms around his drawn-up knees.

Scraping together the last shreds of his own will, he decides to run, fast, before he's got nothing left of himself. Back to Guy, to a life he's been in a hurry to leave and now desperately wants back.

xxx

Iason beats him to it. Before Riki can think of what he'll need to disappear from Iason's radar, Daryl tells him that Iason wants him in Eos and that he should prepare for a longer stay. Riki puts a few clothes, soap, toothbrush and shaving kit into a new rucksack and wonders whether this is his chance.

Katze in his red car waits for Riki outside the penthouse.

Riki slings the rucksack over his shoulder and glares at him. "Why can't he send someone else?"

Katze shrugs. "I'm cheap?"

Riki rolls his eyes.

Katze hits the ignition switch, and the engine begins to hum. "Hop in, I'll give you a lift."

Reluctantly, Riki stuffs his bag into the footwell and climbs into the car. "So?"

Katze pulls out into the busy afternoon traffic. He is smoking, the fag dangling from a corner of his mouth. "You pissed him off pretty bad."

"See if I care."

"Jesus." Katze shakes his head. "You really don't get it, do you?"

"Fuck you. You're no better, just doing what he tells you, is all. You been sucking him off, too?" Riki holds his face into the wind, his eyes narrowed against dust and the glare of the sun. He can't see that Katze's face and neck flush pink, or that a tiny smirk tugs at Katze's mouth. He grips the upper edge of the windscreen and half hangs over the door to look back at a road sign. "You missed the exit to Eos," he shouts. "Where're you going?"

"You'll need work."

Riki plops back onto his seat. "What?"

"You wanted a break, right?"

Riki gives Katze a nervous glance. "Says who?"

"Iason. You have a year." Katze runs a red light and ignores the honks as he cuts across an eight-lane crossing between streams of traffic. Riki gasps and clutches the dashboard; Katze smiles thinly. "It's not an open deal. He said you needed to learn gratitude. To appreciate what he's giving you. You know what he's expecting."

"I want to go home," Riki bursts out.

"Three years is a long time."

"Three years?" Riki shifts on his seat. "So what? I wanted to leave sooner, but he said stuff about the gang... He can be an asshole, right? I just want to get back home. To Guy. He loves me."

"Loved," Katze corrects. "He probably did."

"What do _you_ know?" A click of panic breaks Riki's voice. He clears his throat and blinks against the wind that blows his hair into his eyes.

"It could have worked, couldn't it?" Katze carries on, ignoring Riki's fidgeting. "A good, honest life. Playing the grease-monkey at the garage, mending old bangers, selling gas, paying protection money to the local racket... Hard graft, bad pay, dealing with losers all the time. Still, it would have been clean."

"What are you getting at?" Riki demands crankily.

"He sold the garage." Katze swerves smartly across several lanes and overtakes a small queue of already speeding cars to catch the exit signposted for Mistral. "Not long ago. Spent too much time looking for you. Bad for business."

Riki gets thrown against the door and clutches its edge. "What?"

"Guy. He sold up. Couldn't afford the rates any longer, so I bought the place. And before you explode, it was a fair deal, no pressure involved. I paid a decent price. Your gang, they decided they'd honour your memory, or some such shit; perhaps they just like the way he runs things. Clean, at least while he's looking. So that's what he's gone to do after you left him. Lost the garage, built a new business with them. Now they're jobbing as motorcycle couriers, doing the shopping for little old ladies... okay, maybe not that, but you get the drift."

Riki goes quiet, staring ahead.

"My guess is, he couldn't bear the memories. Or the waiting for news, for a message or something." Katze leans across and snaps open the glove compartment. Riki can see a gun and a few packets of cigarettes.

"Watch the fucking road," he says, anger and pain in his tone. He takes one packet out and peels it open. After a moment of hesitation, he lights up two smokes and hands one to Katze.

Katze takes it, glancing at Riki, sparks dancing in his strange yellow eyes. Riki isn't sure whether the redhead is mocking him. Katze narrows is eyes against smoke and wind and ash. "Oh, and there's someone new in the gang. Looks a bit like you. Only just. His name's Kiri. He's a bigmouth, not much up here." Katze taps his temple with his knuckles and smirks. "Perhaps he's got other qualities."

"Shut it," Riki grinds out.

"What are they going to think when you get back? When they find out just where you've been the last few years?"

Riki's fingers clench on the edge of the door. "It's still me. I haven't changed. Guy, he loves me. You, you're all fucked up. I want to go home, that's all, and you can go screw yourselves."

xxx


	13. Chapter 13

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.  
Apologies for any formatting errors - the site didn't work as usual when I tried to upload this time.**

xxx

Katze drops Riki at the garage that used to be Guy's. Now the place lies silent, the pump decommissioned, the windows barred and shuttered. The price display is stuck on something ridiculously low, the glass blind with condensation. The crates of scrap are gone from the back of the forecourt, and the concrete Guy used to sweep is covered in rubbish, gathering in the corners, behind the pump, against the gate of the workshop. Riki stares, something prodding at his mind. He realises that there are no graffiti anywhere – not on the garage gate, the shutters, or the pump. He is too numb to wonder why.

"Get out already," Katze says.

Riki climbs out, snags his rucksack, and then looks at the redhead. "And what am I supposed to do now?"

Katze shrugs. "Not my problem."

"You asshole."

"You know," Katze says, smoothly swinging himself out of the car, "I thought you had a bit more up here." He knocks Riki's temple in passing.

Riki watches him unlock the garage gate that's secured with an old-fashioned padlock to a steel loop cemented into the concrete floor. The gate slides up and back. The workshop is empty, too – gone are the workbenches, the toolracks, the pots and buckets with grease and paint. The shower and the small shack are gone, the walls are whitewashed. The metal stairs up to the top floor, where Guy's materials store used to be, have a fresh coat of grey paint. It still smells of solvent.

Katze drives the red car into the workshop. A moment later, the garage gate slides shut, and Riki is alone on the empty forecourt.

xxx

Bison have turned the spacious upper floor of the former steelyard office into a room for living and sleeping. It is bleak, with ancient wallpaper full of splotches and cracked brown lino on the floor, but it is clean. They've hanged sacking across one of the two windows and built shelves of sorts from stacks of empty crates that provide some basic privacy. A small fire flickers in a cannon stove made from an empty oil drum, with a frying pan and a kettle on a griddle that covers the top of the drum.

Guy has a cot near the uncovered window. His clothes, a few towels and blankets are folded neatly on top of a crate with bike spares. There is an old-fashioned enamelled bowl and pitcher for washing, his shaving kit and toothbrush. He has pushed his boots, scraped clean and polished, under the footend of the bed. Riki's stuff lies in a messy pile next to the crates.

The gang are chatting and drinking downstairs, a few candles stuck in empty bottles, wax dripping. Cards and dice scattered on the overturned cardboard box that serves for a table. The room blue with smoke, tobacco laced with other stuff, cloying and heavy. They are loud and cheerful, bursting into laughter or swearing when one of them loses a few fags in a game. Norris blurts out that he's got no smokes left and he's betting his clothes. There are cheers from Syd and Luke and the clatter of dice, followed by shouts of 'off, off, off!'

Upstairs, Guy pulls Riki close. Riki claws into Guy's hair and presses against him. For a while, they stand like this, until Guy says, "Aren't you cold?"

Riki shakes his head. "Just... tired," he mumbles.

They lie down, Guy shifting against the wall to make room for Riki who curls up against him. Guy holds him tight, almost squashing him. "Riki..."

"Don't ask," Riki murmurs, his voice thick with drink.

"I'm sorry," Guy says, his lips against Riki's cheek.

"What?"

"About the garage. I didn't know..."

Riki turns his head so he can kiss Guy. "It's okay."

"No, I should have-"

"It isn't your fault."

Guy keeps silent for a while, listening to Riki's breathing, as he tries to make sense of it all. "What happened?" he asks at last.

There is a long pause, and he almost thinks that Riki's fallen asleep, but then Riki says, "You remember that redhead, the bloke with the glossy car?"

"I sold the business to him," Guy says quietly.

Riki can feel his throat go dry. "I got into trouble," he says. "One of his jobs. I wanted to let you know but I couldn't."

"They caught you?"

Riki hesitates. "Yes," he says at last. "It's my fault about the garage. All of this shit is my fault."

Guy hugs him hard. "Shut up," he says softly. "We're here, aren't we? I thought-" He breaks off, takes a deep breath, and then, his tone thick with things he can't put in words, "I love you."

Riki stirs in his arms. "Guy..."

Guy lifts one hand to rake through Riki's hair, then strokes down, feeling, exploring as if for the first time, lean muscles under smooth skin, the sweep of firm, wiry limbs, the arch of Riki's hips. Riki clutches fistfuls of Guy's hair when Guy's fingers slip between his thighs. He presses into Guy's touch that is tender and firm. He feels clean and desired when he opens to Guy's lovemaking, warmth washing through him when they become one. Release rolls over him in long, deep waves, and when he feels Guy's lips on his skin, worshipping everywhere they can reach, Riki shatters. He splays one hand over his face and bites his lip to keep silent as a few slow, bitter tears well from his eyes.

Guy, clear-headed and perceptive even then, settles by Riki's side and pulls the blanket over both of them. Riki can feel his naked body, skin to skin, damp and smelling of sex and sweat. Guy's warmth fills him, and he calms down, a bit embarrassed about losing it like that.

"I've been waiting," Guy says, "I'd do it again. Wait, sell, whatever. That redhaired bastard, he'll get his payback, you'll see. Perhaps it was him, ratting you out so he could get off the hook. Well, we'll help you settle it, and then we'll start over."

"I..." Riki clears his throat. "I haven't been waiting... I mean, all that time..."

There is a small break, before Guy reaches under the pillow for the packet of cigarettes he keeps there. He lights two and puts one between Riki's lips. He snags Riki's gaze, and for a few heartbeats they just look at each other.

"You're back," Guy says at last, his voice a bit rough but firm and warm, like his hand that cups Riki's cheek. "That's all that matters."

xxx

Riki wakes from the noise of arguing voices. Keeping his eyes closed, he recognises Norris, Syd, Luke, and then Guy, but there is someone else, too. He recalls Katze's snide remark about the new man in the gang.

His clothes are spread tidily over the footend of the cot. On the box with spares stands a thermos flask, worn by use, the outer lid replaced by an old enamel mug, put upside down over the cork. Riki recognises the flask as the one Guy used to fill with coffee for him at the garage. For a moment, he just sits there, his chest filled with a strange, tugging pain.

A bike engine begins to grumble, then roars as it's being revved hard, drowning out the voices before the bike leaves, it's growl fading beyond the yard.

Riki starts to get dressed. _Time to face the music_.

xxx


	14. Chapter 14

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.**

xxx

Riki finds Katze at the garage. The red car gleams from the open gate. Katze, in a loose black sweater, sleeves rolled up to bare his forearms, and jeans so tight they look like painted on to his backside, he is leaning over the hood and buffing the chrome frame of the windscreen with a rag. He is smoking, the fag dangling from a corner of his mouth when he looks up go give Riki a curious glance.

Riki knocks the gear lever into idle and lets the machine roll grumbling onto the court. "Hi," he says.

"Hi rat," Katze says around his fag, and a slow smile tugs at his mouth.

"I told you to leave him alone."

Katze's strange eyes narrow, his expression somewhere between vague annoyance and amusement, and for a moment Riki thinks it's strikingly like Iason's. "You know what killed the cat?"

Nervously revving the engine, Riki frowns. "What?"

"What, what," Katze apes, "just keep your nose out of this, or you'll regret it. Iason doesn't like anyone meddling with his stuff."

"Yeah, right," Riki snaps bitterly, "and what's to lose?" He regrets his words the moment he says them and catches the spark of irony in Katze's eyes although he doesn't quite understand what Katze could find so funny.

"Okay, I got it," he says, "it's business, nothing to do with me, yaddah, yaddah."

Katze straightens and wipes his hands on the rag, then tosses it into the footwell of the car. "You know nothing. You're fishing. Somebody made an offer to your boyfriend, and he's saying no but means perhaps, and perhaps means yes. He's feeling the pressure – from the rest of your gang, and now because you're back, and he wants to offer you something better than Ceres. He's scared of losing you, you're scared to tell him because you'd be rumbled, and he'll throw you out. He's got no time for pets, right? Not even to make a few shipments from A to B. Sealed containers, fully legal documentation, nobody's going to check."

"You're behind all of this shit," Riki bursts out. He feels miserable.

Katze shakes his head and props his backside against the front wing of the roadster. "Wrong," he says calmly. "I'm only the messenger."

Riki swallows. "So who is? Who's doing all of this crap to us? Why can't you leave us alone, for fuck's sake?"

Katze pushes himself away from the car and comes out to settle his hand on Riki's shoulder. Riki can smell the aroma of car polish, tobacco and strong aftershave. It's a sharp, spicy scent, and it triggers a strange nausea in him. "Take your dirty paws off me," he grinds out.

"Hey." Katze leans forward, his yellow eyes boring into Riki's dark ones. "Get real, Riki. Time's ticking."

Hearing his name like that makes Riki's head swim. "Leave Guy alone," he says fiercely.

Katze shrugs and straightens. "I'm not doing anything. I'm just offering choices."

xxx

Nothing and nobody will hide for long from Katze, not in Ceres, or Mistral, not even in HerBay or Midas. In fact, there is nowhere in Tanagura where Riki could stay under Katze's radar for long, but he doesn't know that, and neither does Guy.

Katze, from a ruined building opposite Bison's hideout, watches Riki scramble back to life. Days, weeks, months of monotony, broken only by blazing rows with Kiri – but Katze feels almost jealous of the gang in their attempt to make a living. In the end, Guy threatens to throw Kiri out. Faced with this, even Kiri takes on occasional jobs, working at the same bar as Norris, or helping Luke washing cars.

A pair of expensive, night-vision binoculars in hand, Katze spends long hours standing by the cobwebbed window on the top floor of the old warehouse, amid dirt- and rust-encrusted machinery, the smell of old grease and engine oil still thick in the musty air. The roof, made of glasspanes, is long blind and grey, and daylight filters into the production hall in muted grey swathes.

A mirthless smile tugs at Katze's lips as he watches the gang go out to work, come home to get drunk and high on whatever is at hand, their bikes idle apart from a few lazy spins to Dana Bahn and back.

Iason is getting impatient. The year he's given Riki is coming to an end, and he is demanding results. Katze loiters, not sure why he is hesitating, before going to see Iason in person to give him the news that Guy won't be willing and Riki is sticking to his guns.

xxx

Katze has to ID himself and wait for the door to open. The apartment is dark, the glittering lights of the city casting a faint glow through the panorama window. Iason sits by the window in his chair, his posture relaxed, a glass of wine in one hand. Katze needs a moment for his eyes to get used to the shadows before he realises that Iason is naked, one hand covering loosely his groin, his hair a flood of silver over his shoulders and the back of the chair.

Pausing by the door, Katze feels his throat tighten, and he quickly casts his gaze down. He doesn't want to feel what he does, and he can't help it.

"Come in," Iason summons.

Katze steps in, his steps almost soundless on the polished floor even though he's wearing boots. He links his gloved hands in front and keeps his head lowered. "You won't like the news I have."

"Old news," Iason says, sounding uninterested, almost bored.

"You know?"

"What do you think? That I need to wait for you?"

Katze purses his mouth. "They why waste my time?"

"I didn't think I would. There aren't many who have the privilege to come and go at will here."

"I didn't ask for it."

"Did you not? I recall you begging."

A shiver runs down Katze's spine. He clasps his hands together more firmly. "If there's nothing else, then perhaps I should go now."

"Won't you look at me?" Iason's voice drifts through the dusky space between them.

Katze swallows hard. "I know what you look like."

"Then remind me," Iason says calmly, "of your looks."

"I can't," Katze murmurs hoarsely, "not the way I'm now."

"Once," Iason says, rising in a smooth, powerful motion, "only once in my life I felt... something." He sets the glass on the desk and slowly crosses the room until he is so close to Katze that they can sense each other's heat.

"The likes of you," Katze says weakly, "don't feel anything."

"I felt _close_. As if we were one." Iason reaches out and brushes the coat off Katze's hunched shoulders. His hands are heavy and warm and they make Katze shiver.

"We aren't. We never were."

Iason's hands slide under Katze's grey tee-shirt. "Liar," he says softly.

Katze's breathing becomes fast and deep when Iason stills, holding him in a firm grip that could be many things – protective, steadying, possessive...

"You have Riki," Katze manages.

"Do I?"

"You-"

"It's different." Iason leans in and brushes Katze's scarred cheek with his lips. "Haven't you had enough yet?"

Katze startles and pulls back abruptly. "Of what? Being your punchbag?"

Iason stares at him. His face is shaded but Katze can feel his gaze, just like his touch.

"Say that you hate me," Iason says quietly.

"I hate you," Katze almost breaks in, so quick is his retort, and it cuts him to the bone. "I hate you," he repeats, his voice cracking. "This isn't fair..."

And Iason's reply, as he begins to undress Katze, is a distant echo: "Nothing is fair."

xxx

Katze stands pressed back against Iason. His arms strain, elbows locked, sinews standing out like cords between taut muscles, as he pushes against the glass of the panorama window. Iason cups Katze's throat with one hand, and the other slowly trails down Katze's spine, tracing the curve of his back, down between his buttocks, and ends up gently mauling his mutilated groin. Katze has long discovered that the knotty stub of flesh responds to arousal, that the scar underneath is super-sensitive to touch, and that he can find enjoyment and relief if he wants, through touch inside and out. It has been easy enough to replace chemically what his body has lost physically, but sometimes he wonders whether perhaps this makes it worse – he can't, he won't forget, and it's driving him mad. With resentment, with longing. He's been looking for a vent elsewhere, but there is no satisfaction in banging some jaded rentboy – he's always sought his own release afterwards, in private, with closed eyes, images of Iason tearing through his mind.

Iason leans forward to kiss the nape of Katze's neck, then lifts his head to watch Katze shiver, goosebumps raising the fine hairs on his lower arms. Katze bites his upper arm to stifle a groan. His hands clench against the thick glass, his knuckles pushing sharply against his skin.

"Let go," Iason murmurs, entreating, his fingertips pressing lightly against scarred flesh. Katze hisses his breath out through his nostrils. Iason smiles, his gaze dark and hooded. "Let me in," he rasps softly. A small push, and his thumb sinks into Katze's body whilst his fingers keep rubbing.

A sound wrenches from Katze's throat – half sob, half curse – as he tries to twist away from Iason's touch that is skilled and sure, tearing into him with all that he's been missing bitterly in those eternities spent alone in his bed.

"Stop struggling. Haven't I made up for your loss?" Iason carries on, establishing a rhythm that flares through Katze's parched body like wildfire, driving him on relentlessly, burning, coiling, screaming through him.

"You- ah- never-" Katze bites his lip hard enough to draw blood. He is teetering on the cusp, staring down in the abyss he knows will swallow him whole when Iason nails him and stays put, leaning over to touch his mouth to Katze's scar. Katze's skin tastes of sweat and aftershave. His hair, soft and tangled and a bit greasy, tickles Iason's nose. It makes Iason dizzy with hunger, the need to hold, to own and keep close, to choke and suffocate all resistance out of Katze, until he can be sure, completely sure...

"I've given you power," Iason says, each word a biting kiss, marking the side of Katze's neck with reddening bruises. "Have I not?"

"You took my- oh god, Iason- my nuts- ah..." Katze's squeezes his eyes shut and shudders. He can feel Iason like living fire inside him, and then he breaks, a loud, breathless keening coming from him. He explodes, relief surging through him as he spills himself into Iason's palm.

For a few heartbeats, he is empty, his mind light. He can feel wetness on his groin and Iason's hand, seeping between those skilled fingers. And then defeat washes over him, black and bitter.

xxx

Katze, naked, his legs crossed, sits on the floor by the panorama window. He is smoking in deep, slow pulls.

"I missed you," Iason says quietly as he settles next to him. "Beauty. Youth. Talent.."

"No match for age and treachery," Katze retorts, a lashing of spite in his tone.

Iason smiles, raising his hand to comb through Katze's hair, pushing it back so he can trace his scar.

Katze shakes his head and flicks ash onto the floor. "I keep forgetting, you know."

"What?" Iason murmurs, bending to kiss him, sucking some of the smoke out of his mouth and breathing it in, before letting it curl from his nostrils.

Katze leans against him, their foreheads touching. "That you don't age like we do. People in the slums... most of us won't even live out our normal lifespans, but you know that. I've seen the stats."

"They aren't good."

"Is that why the Council won't publish them? No, forget it. No citizenship registration means we don't exist."

"That came in handy for you. And if I remember this right, it was one of the demands that came from the Ceres administration after the Dana Bahn disaster, to avoid purges, as they called it. We just complied."

Katze snorts. "Sure thing. And you save on civic services."

"Including law enforcement," Iason reminds him. "That's part of our deal, is it not?"

"That your kingpin makes the law in Ceres?" Katze shakes his head. "Well... Most of us get killed in some way. In the streets. At work. By sickness. But you... three, four, five generations... How old are you? Three times my age? Young for the likes of you, and you still you don't look a day older than me."

There is a small break before Iason says, "Is that what you want? I can give you that."

Katze watches smoke rise against the window and drift towards the ceiling, dissolving in the dusk of the large room. "What's the point?" he says.

He turns his head so that he can look at Iason over his shoulder. Iason, struck as always by the strange perfection of the unmarred half of Katze's face, stares unashamedly, his gaze trailing the contours of Katze's semi-profile, the arch of a high cheekbone, the narrow nose, the perfect bow of lips that are neither too full nor too thin. He marvels at the deep gold of Katze's pupils and the fiery copper of his hair that is smooth and thick and contrasts pleasingly with the translucent white of his skin. Iason can't, doesn't want to help himself and reaches across to let his fingertips follow his eyes, before leaning in and touching Katze's temple with his lips. "Beautiful," he rasps.

Katze wraps his arm around Iason's neck, dragging him close firmly, then pushes him back. "What was it, Iason?"

"What?" Iason murmurs, his hands sliding lower, down Katze's shoulder, his bare chest, his arm.

"Why did you do it?"

Iason smiles faintly but doesn't reply. He strokes past Katze's mutilated middle, along the inside of his thigh, watching the trail of goosebumps in the wake of his touch.

Katze shivers, then slaps his hand over Iason's. Iason pauses, irritation warring with control on his face. Irritation wins. He pulls back. "Don't do that again," he says.

"Or what?" Katze replies, heat coiling beneath his cool. "What are you going to chop off me next? Want to wipe my brain? Why didn't you?"

There is a small break, a rift between them, a yawning crack in time. Iason's features regain their serenity. "You have a beautiful mind," he says quietly. "I like beautiful things."

Katze stares at him for a moment, then pulls his knee up and props his elbow on it. He lets his head loll forward and rests his brow in the crook of his arm, his eyes drifting shut. "What was it, Iason?" he asks, his voice muffled. "That Raoul knew, or that I found out?"

Iason strokes Katze's arm, from his wrist to his shoulder, and up his neck into his hair, then slowly back. "I don't know what you're talking about. There are no records."

"Sure, there aren't now. A mixed-blood Elite, the head of Tanagura Council no less, fancy that. Is that why you had to be the best at everything? More Elite than the Elite, right? Because you were pissed that someone messed up your imprint? "

A long, heavy silence passes before Iason says, "How could this be? That we're born unfree, worse than the most miserable Ceres rat... It's the fatal flaw. A giant joke."

"Your mom's got a weird sense of humour."

Iason draws a slow breath. His gaze strays through the dusky room as if he was seeing it for the first time, as if trying to comprehend. His voice is quiet and unusually subdued when he says, "Jupiter assigned a prime inventory item as surrogate to create me. But the Elite who made me liked the surrogate. It should not have happened..." Iason glances out of the panorama window over the glowing city. "He convinced the laboratory to keep some of her imprint and blend it with his own. The scanning methods were less rigorous back then."

"Is that why you're looking for pirate imprints, why you keep buying odd items? To trace your past?"

Iason turns back to Katze. He brushes the hair back from the scar that disfigures the redhead's face and runs his finger over the puckered flesh. "Perhaps I should allow Raoul to test your imprint."

Katze shrugs. "Waste of time. I grew up in Ceres, there's nothing to it. I'm a freak there, with this crap hair. But you... what did you want to prove to me, Iason?"

Iason lets go and rises abruptly. "Nothing."

Katze gets to his feet too. He leans against Iason from behind, bedding his face against Iason's shoulder, getting dizzy with the scent of his hair, the flavour of his skin – sweat, salt, strong and clean. Longing and pain sear through him, and the words he's planned to say since he's come to see Iason that evening jump from his lips at last, before he has time to swallow them. "It won't happen again."

"What?" Iason asks, his voice husky and low.

"I won't let you screw me again."

There is a long pause. They can feel each other's pulse, warmth and closeness almost overwhelming, until Iason says, "I know."

xxx


	15. Chapter 15

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.**

xxx

"I don't know why they've thrown me out," Norris says unhappily. "Perhaps... you know, it's not such a big deal to get paid for going with one of the punters sometimes."

Luke cuffs him lightly. "You crazy?"

Norris covers his face with his hands, and Luke pulls him close. "Don't be stupid," he says huskily. "Something's gonna come up."

But in the weeks that follow Luke finds that nobody wants him to wash cars anymore, or dishes, or even clean out the rubbish. He joins Syd on the trunk road, and soon they're both working long shifts until they're living like animals, capable of no more than working, eating, sleeping. Riki and Norris, too thin and short to stand a chance to be hired for that kind of jobs, are taking over the pizza deliveries; Guy starts jobbing at a garage where he's fixing old cars. For a while, he's the one earning the most, but it doesn't last long, and he's out of work again, no reason given. The delivery service folds, calls drying up, and when Guy goes to talk to the business owner, he's fobbed off.

Money is draining awayfast. They stop buying booze and cigarettes, and they go hungry most days, reserving most of the food they can afford to Syd and Luke. Riki and Norris start tricking and stealing, but the fence where they take their first load of goods won't take their second haul. Sensing that something is off, they are too scared to press him. They lift food, smokes and drink instead in order to get by at all. Guy does odd jobs, carrying his tools in a rucksack and fixing cars, plumbing and doors. Occasionally, Kiri turns up. He's been wearing the same off-white suit for a long time, and it's in need of cleaning. He usually has some cash that gives them a fresh boost, but he doesn't bother hiding his disdain, and he starts pestering Guy with hints again. And although the gang shouts him down every time, he doesn't stop, and Guy doesn't threaten him anymore.

And then, one day, Guy is gone, along with Kiri. Bison search for them but it's as if the ground has swallowed them up. Riki feels sick with worry and foreboding, and at night, when he drops into the bed he's been sharing with Guy, he keeps tossing and turning, unable to find rest even though he's weary to the bone. In the end, he does what he's been trying to avoid all that time.

xxx

"Hi," Riki says when Katze opens the garage door.

"Hi Riki." The redhead is smoking – briefly Riki wonders whether he's ever seen him without a fag dangling from his lips and comes up with a blank.

"I'm a rat, remember?" Riki says wearily.

Katze's eyes are hooded as he gives Riki a slow, calculating all-over. "Okay," he says at last. "Hi rat. Come in. Bring the bike, better not leave it in the street."

"I didn't plan on staying."

"Oh." One syllable, but Katze makes it sound heavy, packed with meaning Riki doesn't want to get. "Well, then..."

"Where is he?" Riki blurts out, his hands clutching the grips on the handlebar of his machine. "Guy, what have you done with him?"

"He didn't tell you?" Katze shakes his head, a twinge of regret passing over his ravaged face. "You remember the deal Kiri came up with?"

Riki clamps down on the grips of the handlebar as he feels the blood drain from his head, and his knees go weak. "What?"

Katze's gaze is intent and cool, without mockery. "I haven't done anything. Guy's gone to Apatia."

There is a long break before Riki gathers himself. "That's your gig. You did all that, took our jobs, pushed us, made him think about it – did you send Kiri to mess us up?"

"Kiri?" Katze shrugs, lightly taps his temple. "He isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, is he? A bit like you, three years back?"

Riki blinks at the insult but he doesn't argue because Katze has hit bullseye. He feels his resolve drain away, giving way to exhaustion, a dragging sensation deep in his guts that saps his strength and leaves him cold and hollow. "If you know everything, tell me who wanted Guy?"

"Iason," Katze says bluntly. "His idea. He likes Guy's looks, and he likes a challenge." _A passing semblance, perhaps – who knows? He's got nice eyes. Bright and clear, but they'll be dull soon enough, and his hair's brown, not red. No, bullshit. It's over. _

Riki sags, his shoulders slumping. Cold sweat is beading on his forehead, runs into his eyes, salty and bitter. It makes them burn, and he scrubs at his face with his sleeve. "Are you... is this fun for you?" he says, his voice muffled.

Katze touches Riki's upper arm. The gesture is light, inviting. _No pressure. That's the trick. Never involve pressure. _"Not really. C'mon, Riki the Rat. Perhaps we should talk."

xxx

Curiously, Iason circles Guy who stands in the middle of the large lounge of the Apatia penthouse. Kiri is loitering by the door, his shoulders hunched submissively, a thin smile on his lips that doesn't reach his eyes – they are dark, lingering nervously on Iason.

"You may leave," Iason tells him

Kiri politely clears his throat. "Your Excellency," he starts, his tone dripping with deference, "if you are happy, then perhaps-"

"You will be paid as agreed," Iason interrupts impatiently.

Kiri knows when to be quiet and bows his way out of the room. The door closes with a soft hiss, and Guy blinks, a flicker of something disturbing his perfect composure before he can gather himself again.

_How annoying, _it drifts through Iason's mind, _to see the same insolence... no, wrong. This one's different. Would he even understand what it means to be a sacrifice?_

Studying Guy, Iason plays with the switch of the electric prod he carries, a long, slim cane with an elegant silver knob. Guy's eyes are calm and clear, with the knowing expression of a man who has calculated the odds and made his decision.

_Dignity, _Iason thinks, vaguely amused, _how precious. It doesn't suit them. Does he realise how fragile it is, how easy to break? _

He lightly taps the tip of the prod against his boot. "Undress," he orders quietly.

Guy keeps his expression blank, giving away nothing while he starts taking off his clothes. Iason admires the way he moves – sparse, sure, wasting no energy. In spite of himself, Iason enjoys the view that emerges as Guy peels away the poor rags he is wearing. Baring smooth, pale skin, scrubbed but not quite clean for lack of soap and warm water. A few small scars and blemishes, a birth mark on his right shoulderblade. Thick hair the colour of tainted copper. Wiry limbs and a pleasingly proportioned body. And above all, Guy seems suffused with this strange, disconcerting calm.

Iason runs the prod over Guy's arm, his flank and down his thigh. "How are you feeling now? Still confident? Full of contempt?" He kicks aside the little heap of clothes and takes a tracer braclet from his jacket pocket. He has registered a temporary ID for the tracer, the confirmation only a few hours old. He threads the bracelet onto the prod, then holds it out for Guy to see. Guy stares at the grey metal cuff. Iason watches him, noticing the colour of Guy's eyes – grey-blue, with a dark rim around the iris that gives them depth and brilliance. Iason thinks that Guy is tall for someone from the slums, but still shorter than Katze, and much weaker than an Elite. _What drives them to be unreasonable like this? Their survival instinct is supposed to be intact. Natural animals, undomesticated, not part of one of Raoul's selection programmes. _The tip of the prod comes to rest on Guy's right nipple, the cuff sliding forward with a metallic ring to settle against his skin. "Put it on. And answer me."

A low current tingles through Guy, and Iason smiles faintly as he watches surprise bloom in his eyes. Guy's finger tremble when he takes the tracer and snaps its catch shut around his left wrist. His throat bobs a couple of times, and then this perfect stillness envelopes him again. It rolls off him, radiating across the room and jarring Iason.

"No," comes the reply at last, Guy's voice slow and heavy. "I feel... nothing."

The words are slurred as if he was drugged, but Iason knows it's something else. _Grief, _he thinks, _that's it. They grieve too much._

"No, sir," he corrects, zapping Guy gently – enough to zing, not quite enough to hurt. Guy jolts but remains silent, his gaze distant.

"What should I do with you now?" Iason runs the prod through his hair and hooks it into the elastic band. "Take it off."

Guy obeys, loosening his hair. Iason tugs off his gloves to touch it, combing slowly through the greasy strands. "Pretty," he murmurs. "What do you think will happen, Guy?"

Guy feels cold hearing his name from Iason's lips. He hates the false familiarity, the sensation of being helpless and having to wait, wait, wait... It's a game of nerves, and he isn't sure anymore whether he really has a chance.

"The money," Iason keeps talking as he steps to the window to glance outside, across the gleaming city, to the dark mass that is Ceres. "Will it reach your friends? And Riki... what will he do? Take it?"

And it is then that Guy realises his mistake with gutwrenching clarity. Something inside him breaks, and it's taking his resolve, his strength, anything beyond one thought. He drops to his knees and bends his head until his brow is touching the cold floor. "Please," he says. "Please leave Riki alone."

Iason doesn't turn. "Perhaps," he says coolly against the shiny glass, "we should ask him what he wants."

"You don't need him," Guy says, something black welling up inside him, choking him so that his voice is just a small, pleading rasp when he wants to shout and scream. "You have so much. You don't need Riki. Please, I'll do anything."

Iason shakes his head. "Don't you understand?" Still gripping the prod, he clasps his hands behind his back. His gaze sweeps across the city, to Ceres. "He will come back because he wants to be here. He has everything he needs. All he can wish for. And out there? Hunger, filth, disease... just look at you. What can you offer him? You are nothing. You can do nothing for him."

Guy raises his head. He is staring at Iason's back, and for a split second he coils up, ready to spring. Iason swings around, glaring at him. The prod hums to full charge, tiny blue sparks crackling about its tip. "How disappointing. I didn't expect you to break so quickly." He points at Guy's clothes. "Cover up. Someone will take you to your room."

And when Guy is gone, Iason sits down on a chair by the window. _Now we wait._

xxx

The sun is setting over Tanagura when Riki arrives at the penthouse. A valet takes his bike, and Riki is allowed in even though he doesn't wear his ring. Numb, with an undercurrent of resignation and despair, he tries to empty his mind when he steps out of the lift. A boy he doesn't know opens the door for him and kneels as he steps in.

Iason stands by the window, his hands linked behind his back.

The door slides shut with a quiet hiss, and Riki pauses, unsure what to do. The familiarity of the place is suffocating him. He wants to run but his feet feel like lead, and he stands like rooted to the clean, shiny floor. The sky is blazing with fiery streaks of copper and crimson, mirrored in the splendid, soaring facades of the city. The pale crescents of the twin moons begin to brighten, and high over the city purple darkness is seeping into the sea of flames.

"It's beautiful, is it not?" Iason's voice drifts through the room. Riki feels his chest tighten. Before he can find an answer, Iason continues, "I have allowed your lover to return to Ceres the moment I had confirmation of your arrival here."

"I want to talk to him," Riki says, his voice a toneless rasp.

Iason turns. "Riki." He stretches out his hand; on his palm gleams the ring.

Riki flinches, but he fights down the spike of anger that lances through him. "Why are you doing this to me? I don't want to be here. I love Guy."

"I love you too."

Riki shakes his head. "You freak me out."

Iason's gaze darkens. "Why? What is different?"

"You'll never get it."

"Try."

"Okay, here goes nothing. It's like I'm a bug that you can squash. Nobody's gonna miss me here. Nobody's gonna even bother asking what happened. Now, if I'd hit you-"

Iason stares at him silently.

Riki shrugs, feeling cold inside under his glare. "See? My point. With Guy... we're equal."

"You still love him."

And Riki, resigned and tired, says, "If I'd not be so shit scared, I'd tell you that I'll always love him."

"Always. Such a big word." Iason's eyes are cool, his expression calm. "I've been good to you. I've tried to give you as much freedom as I could."

"You snatched me off the street," Riki says.

Iason's cheeks colour slightly. "You invited me to use you. And you came to me."

"You weren't supposed to screw me. Elite don't do it, right?"

Iason's gaze flickers. "Some rules... don't make sense. I felt attracted. So did you."

"Not like that. You put chains on me! I don't get it."

"Jupiter's Code of Conduct binds us all, and I can't change every law at once. Weren't you comfortable here? Look at you now. You're dirty, hungry, worried."

Riki says nothing. Iason closes the distance between them with a few long steps and stoops to kiss Riki's temple. "Go, clean yourself. Nothing has changed; you'll find everything in its place, including your clothes." He presses the ring into Riki's hand. "And put this on again."

xxx

Guy stands in front of the gleaming tower and wonders whether he's just had a weird dream. He's been ushered out without an explanation and feels a bit queasy about it all, but he tells himself that perhaps he simply wasn't good enough for this. _Faulty goods. _He squints up at the glass facade, tries to peer past the security guards into the lobby, and then turns towards the road that is busy with rush-hour traffic. The lanes packed with expensive cars. People commuting from Apatia to Eos or Midas – home, work, pleasure, the smell of money thick in the air.

Guy does not even have the few bucks to get a taxi at the rate going in this place. He tries to flag a car down, and in the end laughs at his own silliness and starts walking. _Too good to be true, _he thinks, _but why not? Perhaps it's our lucky break. _He feels his breathing becoming easier the further he gets away from the tower. Soon he breaks into a light jog. Afternoon melts into evening, and dusk is sinking over the city. In the west, over the dark patch that is Ceres, the sun colours the sky a blazing orange. Guy just wants to get home. _And then we'll see about getting out of here. Soon._

xxx


	16. Chapter 16

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.  
Not quite the end but drawing close.**

xxx

_It's weird though, _Guy thinks as he walks along the railway tracks leading from Eos to Mistral, _first they pay big bucks, and then I'm thrown out... That Elite creep, he'll want the money back. Jesus, just hope that Kiri didn't waste it. _The relief and the high of being free start fading, and he speeds up because he can't wait to get back to Bison's hideout.

They're all there, smoking and getting pissed, when he arrives. It hits him like a brick in the gut when Norris asks whether he's seen Riki.

Fear and anger knot into something white-hot in Guy's belly. It makes him sick. It boils in his blood, he can hear it strumming in his eardrums, and it sets his thoughts spinning. _They sucked the life out of Riki, over in Eos... they'll pay for that._

Kiri, pale and fidgety, seems as shocked as everyone else when Guy says that he'll be going back to find Riki. Then Guy goes to bed. For a while, he can hear the gang talk, their voices nervy and heavy with drink. They lay into Kiri, pressing him for information that he claims not to have, but he sounds scared and cagey.

_It doesn't matter, _Guy thinks. _None of it matters now. They're on their own. _He has made his decision, and the sensation of being helpless melts into calm resolve. He is tired, but he feels better than he's been in a long time, and he drops off to sleep quickly.

But in the morning, when it is still dark and he gets up to get his bike ready for the trip of his life, they all gather around. Norris, Syd, Luke. Even Kiri, hiding behind Syd. Luke briefly squeezes Guy's shoulder. "We're coming with you," Norris says gently. Kiri looks put out, shivering with cold and nerves as he stands close to Syd, solid and hard-faced. "We're gonna get him back," Syd growls. "And to hell with it all."

xxx

Iason spends the night with Riki. In the morning, he rises early to shower and order coffee which he drinks by the window. Riki joins him, clean, his hair still dripping from the shower he's shared with Iason. He is dressed in a black silk robe that looks somehow out of place on him. Darkness envelopes Tanagura, with the first shimmer of dawn on the horizon. The glittering lights of the city paint an orange halo around it that fades into the sky above. At its centre, a single star glitters faintly.

"Iason..."

"Yes?"

Iason has draped his coat of office and his uniform jacket over the back of the couch that is the largest piece of furniture in the spacious lounge. In his soft black suit, with its high collar and lightly tailored shape, he looks perfect, his hair like a silver flood down his back, his face beautiful and calm.

Riki feels his strength seep away, his resolve to see this through, to find a way out. He wonders whether it would really be so bad to stay. To please and be pleased. To be a little more compliant and perhaps find contentment with this. _Others have done it. I could, couldn't I? If there's no choice, then why fight? It would be stupid._

"Will you throw me out too?" Riki asks. He means to sound snarky but it just comes out awkward.

"No. And I promise to leave your friend alone if-"

A sudden commotion breaks the stillness – hard, heavy steps down the corridor, approaching the penthouse; a brief argument, sharp, strong words. Iason shows no surprise. Riki stares at him. "What's going on?"

"Visitors, I think," Iason says blandly. "For you."

Riki's face turns grey. "No. Please, don't do this."

"Don't they deserve the truth?"

The new boy appears, pale and nervous. He is not as sleek and silent as Daryl, but Iason has moved Daryl away from the penthouse to serve at his Eos office suite. Before the boy can find the right words, Iason nods. "Let them in."

Guy, Luke, Syd, Norris. Even Kiri. They all pile into the large room, but they huddle by the entrance.

"Riki." Guy pushes Kiri aside and steps forward. Ignoring Iason whose permission to speak he should ask, before whom he should bow and whom he should address as His Excellency, Guy stands ramrod straight, his head held high, chin pushed out.

_Trouble, _Iason thinks, _if he's ever felt demeaned, he's shaken it off. Didn't you say something like this, Katze? Perhaps you were right. _

He seeks Riki's gaze and holds it even though Riki wants to look away – anywhere but at Guy. "Riki, come home."

There is a long silence, until Norris says nervously, "Riki, what's going on? What have they done to you?"

"Are you blind?" Kiri snaps. "He's a toy. A pet."

Luke grabs Kiri's ear and pulls hard, making the youth yelp. "Shut it, you dirty little fucker, or I'll tear it off."

"Is that true?" Syd asks, looking from Riki to Iason and back. Iason lightly tilts his head, his features serene and distant.

Riki casts his eyes down at last. "I have... a registration."

The colour drains from Guy's face. "Bullshit. You can walk away from this now."

"He can't," Iason says, his voice bland and quiet. "Riki, kneel. And show them."

Riki feels the heat rise to his cheeks but he clings to Iason's promise, that Guy didn't have to stay, that Bison were allowed to keep the money – the price for Guy's freedom. He sinks to his knees and keeps his gaze on his hands when he folds back the robe. Nestled in the dark curls of his groin, the ring gleams faintly. Iason splays his hand on the top of Riki's head. A light, approving pat. "Well done," he says softly.

Without looking up, Riki says, "Thank you. Now can I talk to them? Please."

xxx

When Bison leave at last, Riki feels as if he's cut open his wrists and is slowly bleeding out. Iason, who has spent the day amusing himself at a show in one of the dance theatres in Midas, joins him later that night. He is riled up and demanding, his hands hard if not rough. With nothing else to lose, Riki throws himself into Iason's passion with no more hesitation. It's like jumping into a maelstrom, he gets high on it, and when they're through, dawn silvers the skyline of Tanagura, and Riki sinks into exhausted oblivion.

He copes for a while, but images of Guy haunt his dreams. The blank stare. The slow, deep burn of pain as understanding seeps in. Accusations, anger. The rising blaze of hatred, barely concealed. And then, worse than anything, contempt.

Riki seeks release in Iason's arms. He soaks up Iason's hunger and craves more, the harder the better, as if hurting his body might somehow relieve his sorrow. And as time goes by, it almost works.

xxx

Iason permits Riki to work for Katze again, offering him a task to occupy his mind and hands. Katze's firms and business partners deal in many goods; they also buy and ship containerloads of people into a number of holding warehouses. Riki, free to move around, helps ferrying them to the auction houses, for sale as toys or servants. He has an idea that not all of them are legal merchandise, that some of them might not be willing, but he never asks. _It's bearable, _he tells himself, _they can arrange themselves, get used to it, be grateful for the chance once they stop struggling. Becoming the property of some rich __Elite is no worse than the streets of Ceres on a bad day. _

He has almost convinced himself. Once he thinks he sees a familiar face among the warehouse workers – the boy he's beaten at the failed erotic show – but he isn't sure, and refuses to think about it. The boy doesn't recognise Riki; he is busy carting some boxes away on a trolley. They aren't stacked properly, and when a few drop, one of the foremen comes rushing to beat the boy savagely. Riki doesn't hang around to watch, but when he goes to see Katze with a wad of signed shipping documents, he tells him anyway.

xxx

Katze has a den above the garage. There is a narrow bed, pushed up against one wall, a computer on a small desk under the window that is shuttered, and a chair. A door opens into a bathroom cubicle. The place is dingy, filled with the smell of broken wastepipes and damp plaster. The walls are grey and splotched with fungus. It doesn't bother Riki anymore to come to the garage because it's nothing like the place Guy used to run. It's a shell, empty of everything, empty of memories too, but filled with the heavy stink of cigarette smoke and booze. His anger at Katze has faded into emptiness because it's too much effort to keep it going, and right then, the redhead is Riki's only link to his life before Iason.

Riki leans against the door and talks. Katze, crouched in front of his computer, listens, then shrugs. "They beat him for his own good. Some of them are like zombies. My profit margins are tight, I can't afford to pay for stupidity." A small break, a lazy wave with his hand that makes the thick swathes of smoke swirl. "Do you get it now? How lucky you are?"

"You must be joking," Riki says tiredly. "And why weren't you picking up your fucking mobile?"

Katze offers him a fag. "I was busy, sort of. Someone tried to shoot Iason."

Riki's face turns ashen, and the cigarette trembles when he puts it between his lips.

Katze watches him through a veil of smoke. "There's been gossip and worse. He's been summoned by Jupiter, but he's stubborn."

"Who... who tried to kill him?" Riki asks, desperately, fiercely hoping that Guy has nothing to do with this.

"Good question. At the moment the police think that everyone in Tanagura's a suspect."

"C'mon," Riki urges, "you must have heard something."

"Ay, Riki the Rat," Katze says, his tone softening in a way that surprises Riki. Katze's eyes shimmer with melancholy as he stares through the smoke into nothing. "Perhaps I have, but what's it to you?"

Riki bites his lip. He cannot answer this, and they both know it – he can't ask about Guy without implicating him, and he won't ask about Iason because he wants to hate him.

Katze leans back and nods at him. "There's a bottle of vodka in the bathroom sink. Fetch."

It doesn't even scratch Riki that Katze orders him around like that. He gets the bottle and perches on the edge of the unmade bed. Katze keeps a mug by the side of the computer terminal. Riki fills it with the clear, sharp drink from the bottle. Katze holds the mug out to him. "Drink."

Riki shakes his head. Katze mock-salutes him and tips half the mugful down his throat, then shudders. "Jesus," he murmurs, his voice a tad unsteady. "You really should try that. Good stuff, import, duty-free." He laughs. "Medicine for everything."

Riki guesses that he's been drinking already, and seeing Katze like that makes him feel a bit bolder, somehow more on an even footing. "He's driving me mad," he says. "Iason. He can be such an asshole..."

Katze snorts quietly. "But you want him to fuck you." He lets his head loll forward, his fiery mane falling over his face. For a moment, he stays like that, his shoulders drawn up, his hands clutching the mug in his lap, before he lays his head back, baring his throat and closing his eyes. "Yeah. He's good at that."

Riki isn't sure what he is referring to. "Are you pissed?"

"What's it look like to you?" Katze holds out the mug. "Refill, and go. Just fuck off. I need to be alone now... unless-"

"I get it," Riki cuts in hastily.

"Yeah, good rat," Katze shouts after him as he clonks down the metal staircase. "Keep running, round and round in fucking circles..." He listens to the gate grinding shut and the roar of Riki's bike as it swerves off the forecourt, the noise fading down the street. A police siren howls in the distance, pocked by the cracking of automatic gunfire. Katze gets up and stands by the side of the window, where he can pull up the blinds enough to stare across the blackness of Ceres to the gleaming tower of Eos. He lights up singlehandedly, then tosses the lighter onto the keyboard, puts the bottle to his lips and starts taking deep, systematic swigs.

xxx


	17. Chapter 17

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.**

xxx

_Just wait until they're desperate enough,_ thinks Katze when he hears that Kiri has done what he's been told. With Riki gone, he's snuck his way into Guy's bed at last. _Easy, _Katze muses, _the kid looks a bit like Riki. Grief... what's the point? Just makes people stupid, just like... other stuff, and then they do stupid things. _

Cut loose and with nothing to hold him back, Guy has become reckless. There's no love lost between him and Kiri, but they work together and they sleep together because it's better than being alone. Whether he knows that Kiri isn't reliable or not, Guy has accepted dodgy work for Bison again. He has checked but he can't know that Katze has used middlemen to make the deals, and that not even Kiri is allowed to see behind the screen yet. Bison pick up risky deliveries for Katze's firm, and Katze is watching patiently as they try to pick their way out of the maze of poverty that is Ceres. He pays them enough to keep them going, on a short leash. Never more, never enough to save or buy their way into something better, a step up, a shimmer of hope. It doesn't come, and they grow restless, hungry for a break. When Syd becomes sick from the work he is doing at the carbide factory and they have no money for a doctor, Katze thinks the time is right.

He makes his move. He summons Kiri, who is shocked to meet him in person. He tells him he's special, and that this is his chance to make good for himself and his friends, and that there won't be another one. Kiri, scared of a future that isn't one, tempted by money and the promise of leaving the slums behind, talks Bison into taking on a dirty job.

The police are waiting for them, and Bison get caught. They get thrown into cells at the Midas precinct, but a few hours later, they get separated, Kiri is dragged out and disappears. Nobody tells them what happened to him. They languish for a few days, in the company of crime-hardened men that outclass and outsmart them in this place. Syd is getting sicker. Luke is constantly fighting. Helpless as he is watching Norris, who with his pretty face and gentle ways is having a particularly rough time. Guy doesn't find it much easier. They're miserable and close to their limit.

Katze can't decide what exactly moves him to use his connections, but it's his word rather than Iason's that sets Guy free before Iason hears about it. Perhaps it's curiosity, the thrill of the game. He doesn't want to think about it. He knows he's risking his neck by bypassing Iason, and he takes a strange kind of pleasure in it. It isn't much – he cannot get the rest of the gang out, and he's only stealing some time for Guy, but he hopes that Guy will get the message, move on, and finally leave things as they are.

_Be smart, _Katze muses, _and grab your chance. _By the time Riki finds out and pleads with Iason, Guy is already on his way to Ceres, and Iason is livid. Katze decides to stay clear for a while, until the storm blows over, and dives away into the murky world of the slums.

Alone, panicked, and no longer trusting Iason's word, Riki runs, and this time he prepares – he takes money and clothes, packed into a black plastic rubbish bag. The security cameras catch him leaving Eos, and then he's gone, out of the range of the tracker signal as if swallowed by the ground.

xxx

Iason, in a fit of raging paranoia, blames Daryl – the boy is close, he can't talk back, he's an easy target. Iason isn't above homing in on him, and he leaves one message on Katze's palmtop – _Get back._

Knowing better than to argue, Katze obeys and faces Iason's rage. Blows, shouting, kicking, threats, abuse. Curled up on the floor, Katze bites his tongue and lets it blast over his head, until Iason has broken the second whip on his back and his clothes are shredded to bloody rags. Iason, hoarse and too frustrated to keep yelling, dismisses him so he can crawl to the clinic to get stitched up and have his wounds nursed.

In a strange reversal of roles, he discovers that Daryl is there too. Silent, his head bandaged, his thin form unmoving on the white hospital bed, he is hooked up to drips and machines.

It isn't clear to Katze whether Daryl has hit his head falling, or whether he's been beaten. He tries to talk to Iason, knowing that nothing and nobody is safe when he is like that. _Cornered. Spiteful because things are slipping, and the gloves are off. _Walking the tightrope of Iason's unpredictable temper, Katze feels angry and helpless, a profound sense of failure suffusing him – _too little, too late, _he thinks even as he pleads, cautiously, once again with Iason to sell him Daryl's contract. Iason stays implacable.

"Lenience," he snarls at Katze, "is weakness. I am not weak."

xxx

Iason has the glass top of the desk replaced because it is blemished by a long silvery crack on one side. Katze wishes he had told Daryl to find him in Ceres if he needed a way out, and now that it's too late, he can't hold on to the gentle contempt he's cultured towards the boy. Daryl's bruised, blood-shot features – strangely out of shape, with swollen eyelids in blackened sockets – haunt Katze's nightmares for some time. Regret runs through him like a deep, cold current. Yet when Iason tells him that he's picked up the tracker again, and to fetch Riki back, Katze obeys.

He finds Riki wandering a rainy street near his former den in Midas, bruises on his face and bare arms from what would have been a bad hiding. He climbs into Katze's roadster without a word, and Katze returns him to Iason.

It's odd, Katze thinks, that Iason says nothing. But Katze doesn't really want to know what will happen. He tries to stay away and put it out of his mind. But when Iason summons him at last to Eos, Katze finds it difficult to come up with a convincing excuse. "Don't be ridiculous," Iason snaps when Katze starts talking about other commitments, and cuts off the call.

Katze can't avoid going. Unsure what to expect, he is surprised and relieved when the meeting goes like all their business meetings. They talk deals, money, connections. Katze relaxes, cautiously, and even becomes a bit bolder. It's almost as in old times. As normal as it gets between them. They share a bottle of red wine and a few cool, cynical jokes about Jupiter. Riki only shows up briefly, to ask Iason for some money and the permission to go out to buy some clothes he's seen in a magazine. He doesn't look at Katze, but he is fidgety and radiates mistrust and a sullen kind of discontent. When Katze leaves the office at last, it is dark and Riki is loitering by the glasswall that closes off the corridor. The place offers the same sweeping views as the panorama window in Iason's suite, the city shimmering with light. The main avenues radiate outwards from the tower, smaller streets linking them, like a glittering spiderweb. Riki has his hands in his pockets and leans against the glass, his gaze distant. He hasn't bought anything, and he doesn't turn.

"Hi rat," Katze says, pausing.

"Hi," Riki says over his shoulder.

"You look well."

Riki shrugs. "He feeds me, he waters me, and I got somewhere to sleep. We have great sex." A small break, then, "Guy's angry."

"He's thrown you out?"

Riki makes no reply.

"What did he think?" Katze says. "That Iason let him go for nothing?"

A blush heats Riki's cheeks as he glances at Katze. "It wasn't Iason. It was you, right?" He blinks and quickly turns his head. Katze can see his reflection in the glass. Riki's face is empty. "He didn't think I'd go back," he says. "Never crossed his mind. He trusted me, I lied. He thought it might have been something else – money perhaps, or a miracle. Whatever."

"A miracle," Katze scoffs gently. "Really..."

"That's trust for you," Riki bites back. "But how would you know." He sniffs. "I don't want him to do something stupid again." He draws a deep, shuddering breath. "Man, I'm dying for a fag."

"I have some," Katze says, sounding oddly duplistic.

Riki shoots him a mistrusting glare. "Here?"

Katze shrugs, tiny wrinkles creasing the corners of his eyes as he smiles. "Scared?"

Riki stares at him. "Yeah," he says at last. "There's too many stupid rules for us."

Katze steps closer and puts his hand on Riki's arm. Katze isn't wearing his black leather gloves, and Riki can feel his touch, dry and warm and firm. It makes him shiver as Katze starts rubbing his arm, then up his shoulder and his neck. "True," Katze says quietly. "You just have to know _how_ to break them."

Riki grows tense, and then, suddenly, he relaxes and lets his head loll forward. Katze keeps massaging him, feeling the bunched muscles unknot. "Good," he murmurs, his breath on Riki's skin. Katze smells of smoke and cheap soap, a bit of damp plaster. It reminds Riki of home. Of Guy.

"Guy, I made him hate me," Riki says. "I told him how Iason screws me. He went mad..." He shakes his head and stares at the sprawling city beneath his feet, the sheer drop of Eos tower between him and the world outside. "It's better that way."

"Hey," Katze says. "I'm sorry."

Riki huffs. "Fuck you."

"Okay."

"Huh?"

"Huh, huh... Jesus, Riki. Iason's going out. He won't be back for a while."

Riki's eyes narrow, and then he nods. "Cool. And then he's gonna have my balls. Try that elsewhere."

Katze laughs, a quiet chuckle that ripples right through Riki's guts and makes him hot and bothered. "Chickenshit," Katze whispers, leaning in firmly, his lips brushing Riki's ear.

Riki gasps. "I'll show you chickenshit," he rasps, reaching back between them and cupping Katze's middle. "Just wait." What he feels doesn't quite fill his palm, and there's an odd softness to what he can grip, but he doesn't quite realise what it means. It's inconceivable that Katze - bold, independent and powerful - could be like that, and it doesn't cross Riki's mind that there could be something less than rather small parts.

Katze pushes against him. "And I'll show you a good one, rat. There isn't a trick you can't learn from an old slumcat."

Waiting for the opportunity is a thrill already. Riki doesn't believe anything will come of it, he's given up faith in anything, but it's comforting in a hopeless kind of way to dream. When Riki sleeps with Iason, it hurts to think of Guy, but it gives him a rush when thinks of Katze. And when it comes to it at last, he's blown away. Riki's rebellion is dead, channelled into something that can be managed. And for a long time that's it. A strange silence has settled over them.

Until Raoul comes to visit.

xxx

"You didn't make an appointment." Iason leans back in his office chair as Raoul sits down opposite him, on the place that's usually occupied by Katze. "You're lucky that I'm in."

Raoul lays a black disc wallet onto the table. "I checked with your PA, who was lying through his teeth although he did it prettily, but Security records are reliable."

Iason smiles. "I should have known. What brings you here?"

"Apart from the usual issues?" Raoul sighs softly. "It isn't helpful that this… business contact of yours is moving around here freely. How are you doing it?"

"Scientists," Iason says, his smile cool but pleasant. "Always looking for complications. I just kept his registration. He is my property."

Raoul blushes slightly and it annoys him. "I wish _you_ would look a bit harder. Here." He pushes the disc into the centre of the desk. "This was sent anonymously. Nobody has seen it apart from me. The equipment to make holodiscs is still not widely available, and the printers need to be registered, but there's no telling how many illegal machines are out there, and who has them to make copies at will."

"Raoul."

Raoul draws a quick breath. "Yes?"

"Your point?"

Iason watches as Raoul's elegant features darken in a slight frown. "My point is that you have made yourself vulnerable. There has been an attempt on your life, and we have an entire city full of suspects but no lead. And now someone is trying to blackmail or to topple you. The information on this disc claims that that contaminated genetic imprints have been used to create new generations of Elite. That even the Head of the Council is of mixed descent. You know what that means?"

There is a tiny break, before Iason shakes his head. "Nonsense."

"I looked through the old laboratory records. Some are missing."

"This is outside of my area of expertise."

"You are a computer scientist. How hard would it have been to erase any traces?"

Iason's expression remains calm, but his eyes grow cold. "I don't think I understand."

Raoul's blush deepens. "I am… concerned, that's all. Please, Iason. There has been so much talk already – I'm not even starting on the gossip, but two of your three current inventory items weren't purchased through the approved trade channels. Is this really necessary? It's a grey area, and you know that the Council has been arguing over legislation proposals to tighten it up. It is a sensitive issue and unhelpful if you are seen to ignore this."

"Science," Iason says, "belongs to you, my friend. This kind of trouble is mine to deal with."

Raoul takes the rebuke but he hasn't finished yet. "As you wish, I am only talking as your friend. In any case, the two items in question aren't purpose-made, and they are sub-standard material. If that wasn't enough, they have passed their maximum registration period. You have pressurised staff at the registry to extend their registration limit. I have dissuaded them from complaining but-"

"Extended registrations are permitted in certain circumstances."

"Yes – if a female inventory is used as a surrogate and the timing was badly planned, or the inventory contract was sold before the registration expires, otherwise the new owner would be at a disadvantage with a devalued item. I don't think this applies here."

This time, the break is longer, silence filling the room, weighing them down, until Iason says, his voice so quiet that Raoul has to strain to hear him, "Some time ago, someone I trusted made a mistake. There was some indiscretion, leaking some damaging and false information to people who aren't fond of me. Perhaps he meant to help. But his intervention meant that I was summoned by Jupiter, and that the Council doubted my motives, my integrity. I won this challenge because there is nothing to doubt. I decided to keep the matter covered – I felt it was too delicate and too… misguided to treat as a betrayal. I didn't cut back funding for his programmes, and I didn't undermine his position, his honour, his merits. In fact, there were no repercussions at all; he may not even be aware that this cost some effort on my side. But sometimes, curiosity, even if it's for the sake of science, is unhealthy. Don't you think?"

Raoul sits stock still, his face blank, but his eyes give him away. _Shocked,_ thinks Iason. _Good._

And then Raoul manages to surprise him when he stands up slowly. "We have laws for a reason. Please, Iason. I don't want to have to wipe your mind."

Iason's fist slams into the glass of the desk. An ear-rending crash, the toughened glass splintering, bits flying everywhere. Raoul flinches and raises his arm to protect his face. Iason pushes back his chair and rises in one smooth, powerful motion. Blood spills bright red from a gash in Iason's palm and drips in fat blotches onto his uniform and the floor, but he doesn't look at it. His eyes are cold as he stares at Raoul. "You may wish to leave now, my friend."

xxx

Riki is going to one of the warehouses where he wants to check out a truck he needs for his next job. He turns when he hears the roar of a bike – it always cuts him to the quick, makes him bleed inside, and he hasn't managed to get rid of the pain. The machine is approaching fast, heading directly towards him. Confused, he stares, ready to jump, feeling naked without a weapon and nobody close enough to help.

His eyes widen when the driver revs the engine and stares at him through the clear visor.

"Guy?" Riki gasps, unsure whether his eyes are tricking him, whether it's wishful thinking or dread that's flashing through him.

The bike starts moving, it's rider tearing open the throttle as he shoots towards Riki. Riki jumps, but too late – the man's fist lands squarely against his cheekbone. Riki yelps and stumbles back, clutching at his face as he tries to regain his balance. The tyres are screeching as the biker slams down the brakes and the wheels slither on the dirty tarmac. The man stretches out one hand, palm open. And Riki, by instinct, reacts. It doesn't matter who, or what this is. Without hesitation, he grasps the man's hand and swings himself onto the pillion. The wind catches his hair, his clothes, beats against his face as he peers over the rider's shoulder. A reddish-brown ponytail whips against his cheek, and he buries his face in it as he wraps his arms firmly around the man's waist.

He recognises Guy's aroma – sweat, cheap washing powder and soap. He soaks up Guy's warmth, the feel of being close and safe. And as Guy swings the heavy machine out into the evening rush hour, Riki feels as if they're becoming one again.

xxx

They find a backroom at one of the dirty Ceres brothels. It's funny, Riki thinks, that it belongs to one of Katze's chains, but Guy probably won't know that, and it's not that much of a coincidence because almost all of Ceres belongs to Katze anyway. Guy drags the machine into the room - the bike is stolen, he says, and he doesn't want to leave it outside for anyone to spot. The room has a door to a central patio, packed with parked trucks and old cars.

It doesn't matter that there's only an old couch, that the paint is peeling, or that the place stinks of old sweat and unwashed bodies. Guy hugs Riki firmly. "I should never have thrown you out."

Riki shakes his head. "I've been an idiot. I deserved it."

Guy clutches Riki close. "I hit you. I dragged you off without asking," he says, his voice thick with pain. "I'm no better than them."

Riki holds on to him, his nose buried in Guy's hair. "It's different," he says softly. "It's nothing like it." He pulls back a little, still groggy from the blow to his face and the rough ride on the pillion of Guy's stolen bike. His cheekbone is still bruised, some swelling around his eyesocket that makes his features look baggy and old. "You know this place?"

Guy has heard from Syd that street whores can rent rooms by the half-hour, and a few are bedsits let to migrant workers. Most of the rooms are so run-down they're no longer good for other business. "It will be some time before they catch up with us here – we look like we belong to the inventory." Reluctantly, Guy lets go of Riki. "I just wanted to ask… if you don't want to… I mean, I have nothing to give you. If you prefer to get back, I'd understand."

Riki looks around, then settles on the couch. The sagging seats that are covered with black waxcloth that feels cool and sticky. "No, you wouldn't, and you'd be right," he says tiredly. "Let's just get out of here." He fishes a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and flicks it open. There are only two Black Moon in it. He looks up. "Any way we can."

Guy's eyes widen. "Riki…"

"The ring," Riki says thickly, "can you get it off me? I tried, but you're better at small stuff."

xxx

Riki, his trousers down to his thighs, bites his lips as he watches Guy trying to pry off the ring that marks Riki as someone's property. The thing sits snug, and no amount of ice water, cooking oils, vaseline and manipulating Riki's bits will pull it off. Guy tries tools he's brought in a bag lashed to the bike's rear. A bolt cutter, diamond files, small sawblades, but they don't even scratch the polished metal. In the end, Guy covers Riki's bruised middle with his warm hands and looks up unhappily. His face is flushed, his hair sticking in sweat-caked strands to his temples. His expression is sombre, eyes brimming with anger and worry.

Riki's fingers claw into the waxcloth. "You got any fags?"

Guy finds a packet of cigarettes in his jacket pockets, kneels down by him, and lights two. He puts one between Riki's lips. He hesitates, watching Riki smoke in deep, hasty pulls. "I can't get that ring off you."

A flash of panic crosses Riki's face. "We got no chance with that thing on me. He'll know where I am." There's a thin trail of dampness on his stubbled cheek. He scrubs it dry. "Guy, you gotta leave me alone. You tried everything. I guess that's it."

Guy stares at him.

Riki clutches the Black Moon. Sweat is beading on his brow and upper lip. "You hear me?"

"I won't," Guy says fiercely. "I won't."

Riki starts shaking, his eyes swimming. "They'll hunt you down, and they'll kill you, or worse."

"Do you want to go back?" Guy asks, his tone angry but without accusation.

Riki swallows hard, and then he shakes his head. There's a long silence, before he draws a lungful of smoke. He lets it go in a long, nervy stream as he meets Guy's eyes. "I want it off. I don't care how."

Guy bites his lip. "You'd be like one of them. Almost."

"Really?" Riki says bitterly. "Is that a problem?"

Guy pauses, his hand on Riki's arm. He strokes slowly, with a tenderness that makes Riki want to howl. "No," Guy says at last. "It's not." Another break, one in a series of small silences on which their talk drifts like on little waves, lapping at the edges of stillness. "I know someone who does that kind of job. I can get him here; he'll do it and leave. He won't talk because he doesn't want to end up in prison."

"What does he charge?"

Guy's lips thin. "Don't worry. I'll pay."

"How?"

"Remember the cash you left under the pillow?"

"You still have that?"

Guy shrugs. "Figured you'd need it for a rainy day," he lies, hoping that the fake confidence he puts in his tone will fool Riki.

Riki grunts, too tired and scared to think. "And he's good?"

"Clean. Medical school dropout, said he earns more this way. Does a lot of work for unlicenced traders. The guys that sell high-end fakes they don't want spoilt. Toys they steal before they get to auction, then cut and wipe and sell as quality inventory."

"Great, that's me."

"Riki..."

"Hm?"

"Do you like him? The Elite?"

There's a small break, before Riki can answer. "I don't know. He's done stuff I liked. I didn't know I could feel like that... enjoy it... but it's not the same." He looks at Guy, and Guy sinks, as always, melting into Riki's gaze. It makes him happy, even now, and it makes him feel strong and determined.

_Everything, _he thinks, _this is worth everything._

For a moment, there is silence, before Riki pulls Guy close to kiss him. "I want to be with you."

xxx

Guy looks a bit weary when he gets back with the cutter. He has a black bruise low on the side of his neck, but he pulls his collar up before Riki can see it. He's tied a black rag across the cutter's eyes and spins him around a few times before he pushes him into the room with the couch. "Go on."

Riki has curled up to sleep, and Guy bends down to run his hand through Riki's hair. "Hey," he says softly. "He's here. If you're sure..."

Riki rubs the sleep from his eyes and pulls himself up to sit. He looks nervous but determined. "I want to get rid of it."

xxx

Riki, sedated, numbed, but not unconscious, wonders vaguely at how little pain he feels when he's cut and stitched. The blood-smeared ring clangs onto a piece of paper. When it's all over, Riki has lost part of his privates and won back his freedom to move at will. The cutter leaves with the bike and Guy takes Riki, bandaged, wearing loose black pants and pumped full with painkillers, to an old delivery van parked in the service road behind the building. He shortwires the ignition and sets off. Riki sags back, his head spinning, vague pain dragging through his abdomen, but he feels strangely content.

Soon they pass the last houses on the outskirts of Ceres. Riki lays his hand on Guy's thigh, then leans against him. Guy gives him a brief, grim smile. His eyes are bright and hard. And as the van jolts and bounces over the old road to Dana Bahn, morning is rising, cool, dry and sunny, a strong wind from the desert driving dirt and dust through the streets of Ceres. Riki, drifting in and out of consciousness, enjoys the light shining into his eyes.

xxx


	18. Chapter 18

**All notes/warnings/disclaimer from chapter 1 apply to this one too.**

**An extra note of thanks:**

**This is it! This is for all those who helped me write this story – with their intelligent, constructive feedback, encouragement and simply by taking the time to read and tell me what they liked about this story and the rest of the Red Cat sequence. So a great thank you to barrie18, KhalaniK, Hespera Nova. You have been very kind and generous. Thank you also to the Russian fans who kicked the whole thing off with their questions about the gaps in the other two Red Cat stories. **

xxx

The old station receives them in deep silence. Guy helps Riki climb the unmoving escalators and walk the endless corridors, to the far end of Dana Bahn. It is a former waiting hall with a little booth for the security guard, ticket barriers and a small room that looks like a first aid office. It is dirty, the medical supplies raided, cupboards broken open and smashed. But there is a stainless steel sink with running cold, clouded water, a toilet and a mattress which Guy has covered in clean clothes. Exhausted and drowsy, Riki lies down and drifts back into a state of drugged unconsciousness. In his dreams, he feels Guy kiss him and say something about sorting out some outstanding business. Riki smiles weakly, and he can hear Guy's heartbeat echo in his head. He wakes much later, the reek of disinfectant rising from his bandages.

He finds that he can get up and walk as long as he keeps the pain medication up, and there is a good supply of it in a plastic bag at the footend of the mattress, along with a bottle of sugared water, a chunk of bread, a few apples and packets of sterile gauze. There is also money, disinfectant wipes, and a prepaid mobile phone. Riki switches it on. A text message bleeps into being on the tiny screen. _If I'm not back by four, don't wait. _It is followed by the code for another safe place, and signed off _G_. Riki looks at the tiny clock on the display. _Still time._

He goes to the toilet cubicle, pees uncomfortably and renews the bandages covering the stitches. Then he lies down again, takes a pill, drinks some water. He checks and finds that the alarm has not been set on the phone. He keys it in. Clutching the phone to his chest, he goes back to sleep.

xxx

Iason orders Katze into action sharply, telling him not to show up without reporting success. There has been silence ever since, the tracker Katze is wearing now moving quietly across Tanagura as he systematically combs through the satellite cities, the slums, every place – glamorous or miserable – he can think of. He is bidding his connections, his money, anything he can use, but it's all to no avail. Riki has vanished, and so has Guy. Iason regrets that Bison are no more – destroyed, scattered, Norris and Kiri in the possession of Elites, Syd perished in prison from gas sickness and abuse, Luke still languishing in a chaingang, put to heavy labour in Mistral. They have long ceased to be useful, and Iason can't rope Riki in through them.

Waiting for a signal from Katze, Iason spends his time working like possessed, barely moving away from the desk so he can keep watching the screen, check against the mobile receiver he wears like a watch on a strap. He sleeps at his desk. He loses his temper with Raoul who tells him that Jupiter wants to see him. Raoul still has a graze on his cheek from the splintered table. And for the first time since they know each other, his composure cracks. "Iason," he says softly. "I don't want to wipe your mind." But Iason won't listen, and Raoul retreats.

When the tracer blinks to life on Iason's terminal at last, he startles from the doze that's overcome him. He buzzes for his car, without driver, and grabs his coat in passing. On his way to the lift, he tries to contact Katze but only gets his voicemail. He fires off a page message to Katze instead and hits the ignition the moment he drops into the driver seat.

xxx

The tracking system leads him, and soon he is approaching Dana Bahn. The wind has picked up, and dust is drifting in thick swathes over the ravaged yellow plains of the desert. The ruins of mining shafts, rusting machinery, the ground soft and dangerous. In some places, sand is running into bottomless cracks, and the work roads linking the mining sites has sunk in.

Iason leaves the car behind when it slows down too much, the electronic safety system not permitting him to override the speed control. He gets out and relies on the wristband tracker to guide him. As he carefully picks his way towards the old station, his mind clears and he remembers something that's been nagging him for a while. Now the pieces fall into place with gutwrenching clarity. That the station is shielding signals, that this was the reason it was used as the main hideout and site of the last desperate standoff between rebels and troops during the Ceres unrests. Miners having struck tools and bonded with runaway unfrees in an attempt to defy the might of the Elite. When the last battle was over, mining was abandoned and with it the terminals for the workers and their product, and the need to keep so many desperate men in one place. Iason is cross with himself for taking too long to understand.

He isn't surprised to see Guy, waiting at the entrance of the station. The great gate frames him, and he looks small, fragile, the measure of defiance in his stance entirely too much, Iason thinks. It annoys him, but he clamps down on his anger as quickly as it surges.

"I have something for you," Guy says. His voice is cool and challenging. It rankles Iason that there is no fear in Guy's eyes. Strange and clear, they hold Iason's gaze, who reads nothing but controlled hatred in them.

"Give him back," he demands coldly.

"He isn't mine to give," Guy returns. "Why don't you ask him what he wants? Afraid of the answer?"

Iason stares at him. "Let's make this short."

"Yeah, sure. And let's settle it, for good."

"Give him up. I might let you live."

Guy laughs. "Cool. I believe you. So why don't you come along now, for a little walk."

Iason hesitates, and then he blinks his irritation away and draws a deep breath. He gathers his anger and disdain into something black, hot and cold deep in his stomach, fuelling him with an energy that burns away anything else. This is what he wants to feel for Guy and the likes of him, he is sure.

Guy turns and strides into the building. The giant mouth of the gate swallows his tiny figure, and Iason follows slowly.

xxx

Posters and graffiti litter the wall. Concrete, cracked and pockmarked from the impact of projectiles. Iason hasn't set foot into the building in years, but he recalls the stink of blood and explosives, rotting bodies and excrement after the guns fell silent at Dana Bahn. He remembers moving in, commanding the Elite crack troops that hadn't managed to storm the old station until it had been bombed into the ground and gassed. Overseeing the savage clearance operation that followed, sealing bodies and whoever had retreated onto the deeper levels, by bricking up the tunnels that lead into the smoke-filled bowels of the station. He thought then that perhaps some of them had preferred it this way.

The room is small, a former office, Iason guesses when Guy sits down behind an old desk and pulls open a drawer. Iason, standing by the door, takes the space in at a glance – brown stains on the floor – blood, perhaps – a narrow bed against one wall, signs of someone having lived here for a while. Empty food tins, a bunched-up blanket, unwashed clothes, a pair of boots and a motorcycle helmet. For a sickening moment, it crosses his mind that Katze should have known, but there's no time left to think about this. _Later,_ he tells himself, _once this is dealt with._

Guy sets a small box on the desk. He flicks the box across, it slithers right to the edge. "That's yours. Have it back, with regards from Riki."

xxx

Iason knows what it is before the ring jingles to the ground. The burning knot inside him bursts, heat and ice surging through him, when he slams Guy against the wall and pushes the desk into his stomach. Guy doubles over, spitting blood. Iason yanks the desk away and watches Guy drop to his hand and knees, then blindly scramble to his feet in an attempt to fight back. _Pathetic,_ Iason thinks, full of cold, measured hate. Guy is a head shorter than him, and it's ridiculously easy to raise him up and smash him against the wall again. Blood starts spurting from Guy's nose and ears, and his eyes bulge as he chokes, struggling for air. He falls and crumbles the moment Iason drops him.

Iason stoops and drags him up by his hair. "Where is Riki?"

Guy's eyes blaze at him. Iason stares back. Guy gathers himself and spits a fat, bloody glob onto Iason's white uniform breast. Iason pushes Guy's face to the ground. He grabs his wrist and yanks it back, his boot stomping on Guy's lower back, into his kidneys. Guy can't even yell, the pain blasting through him and taking away any thought but one.

"Where is Riki?" Iason repeats, bending back Guy's arm. It wrenches from the shoulder, the bone popping from its socket.

Guy screams.

"Talk," Iason says. "Or I'll rip you apart."

Tears are smeared across Guy's face that is distorted in agony. He's bitten his lip and is bleeding profusely. He howls when Iason starts twisting his arm, the bone starting to scrunch in his grip. Guy's bladder goes, and Iason can smell sweat and fear. But Guy doesn't talk, and Iason understands. He won't get what he wants. Not this time. Not from Guy.

xxx

Iason gives one last calculated, violent twist to Guy's arm and feels the ligaments pop in his shoulder. Flesh and sinews give way as he tears the bone loose and lets go. A hoarse scream comes from Guy's throat, and he tries to curl up, but Iason's boot keeps him down. The arm thuds to the ground, dangling from Guy's shoulder by nothing but skin, and he stills at last, breathless and sobbing in mindless pain.

The echo of a distant explosion shakes the building. Iason loses his balance as it rolls through the corridors and platforms and makes the ground tremble beneath him. Guy is feeling it too, and he is trying to crawl away. Iason thinks it's a shame he won't make it far now, even if he tried to creep back to Riki and it would be easy to follow the broad trail of blood he's leaving on the floor.

Another detonation follows, and more, a whole series of them going off – and coming closer, Iason realises with a flash of heat. He takes a long step and hooks his boot under Guy's cheek to raise his head. Guy glares up at him from bloodshot eyes, and a slow, ugly smile spreads on his ravaged face. "So long," he rasps, sputtering blood with each word.

xxx

Iason walks quickly – he doesn't run because he doesn't want to get lost and be buried alive when the building collapses, and he doesn't know how many charges Guy has set. Undistracted now, he realises in passing what he's missed before – a new cable and wires, hastily covered in rubble, that run along the walls, and as yet intact bundles of explosives. He leaves them. There is a strange emptiness in his chest, and when he thinks of Riki, his throat feels tight and dry, and he is hurting in a way that is new to him. It bothers him, and he knows that this is sorrow, and fear. Iason is frightened.

Turning a corner into a corridor that leads out, he finds himself before a closed door. It is steel-clad, to prevent fire from spreading. Iason casts around, checks the arrows and signs on the wall, and is sure that on his way in the door was open. The switchbox next to it is fused. He hits the metal with his fist. It clangs, he can feel it resonate as the sound ebbs away. On the floor lies a spent fire extinguisher. Iason picks it up and rams it against the steelplating, but the blow just recoils and hurts his arms with the full force of his own strength. Another volley of detonations blasts through the building, much louder than before. Seconds later, the wave of heat and debris hits Iason, throwing him against the steeldoor amid a hailstorm of rubble and dust.

His hair is blowing about his face, dirt dulling its shine. He squeezes his eyes shut until it's over, then he pulls his hair back and winds it into a tight knot. He feels bruised but not broken. With grim relief, he gropes for the extinguisher, steps back and swings it again, when a hiss startles him, and the door slides open haltingly. Iason blinks at the light that streams into the hallway from the main gate. Sand crumbles from his eyelashes.

Bathed in sunshine, Riki stares up at him.

xxx

When Iason releases him from his hug, Riki takes a hasty step back. Iason sees that he's in pain, his skin slick with sweat, his eyes frightened and nervous, but his stance is stubborn. "Where is he?" he throws at Iason. "Guy, what have you done with him?"

Iason stares at Riki, and for a few heartbeats, there is nothing else around them. Until Riki reaches out for him, shoulders sagging. "Please, Iason."

Iason pushes him back. "You still love him." It's not a question.

Riki shakes his head wildly. "I'll do anything! Anything you want!"

The fear in Riki's eyes, the despair in his tone sink into Iason like a knife. _Anything, _he thinks, _but not that._

He pulls off the tracer bracelet and presses it into Riki's hand. "Tell Katze to help you. That's an order. I don't want him anywhere near here." _But I'll have a word with him when I get back, and I'll skin him alive, wherever he's hiding, but that's for later..._

xxx

Iason heads back into the building even as flames start to lick out of the roof where it's been torn open. He tries not to lose his nerve now as the noise and stink engulf him, heat making it difficult to breathe, and smoke filling his lungs from the spreading fires. He hoists Guy up and slings him over his shoulder like a ragdoll. Riki hasn't listened and lurches after him.

_Trust, _thinks Iason with a lashing of sorrow and sarcasm. _How precious, how brittle... _He is sure that by now Raoul will have reported to Jupiter, and that the scandal will have left him no options. No way out, no recovery. _I don't want to have my mind wiped. And why? Because I made my own decision? _He glances back. Riki pauses, propping himself up against a wall. When he catches Iason's gaze, he smiles, a small, tired curving of his lips, but it is reflected in his eyes. Gratitude. A shred of affection. Something that's eluded Iason until then.

_Something true, _he thinks as he draws a deep breathful of the smoke that drifts in layers through the corridors. It makes him slightly dizzy and takes away the edge of pain he's starting to feel. A mellow calm begins to suffuse him as he walks towards the gate.

xxx

They can see daylight stream in broad swathes through the open main gate when another series of detonations rumbles along the upper level corridors, catching up with them like well-aimed artillery fire. Riki stumbles as the pressure wave hits him in the back. He tries to get to his feet again, but he's exhausted to tears, and falters again. Iason shoves Guy's lifeless body out into the open and then returns with long, hasty steps. He sweeps Riki up, one arm around his waist, and pushes him along. A charge goes off hot on their heels; Iason shields Riki from the impact of the blast. There's a sharp, splintering pain in his flank. He can feel something hot and sticky soak through his uniform, and then a dull ache spreading from his ribcage, but he's pressing on. All around them smoke and flames start to engulf the building, blinding them and leaping through the gate into the bright day. The walls start moving, and a great emptiness fills Iason. The outer gate shudders in its bearings. Another blow, and above the frame the massive electrical winches with their the drums of arm-strong wirecables start creaking. A groan runs through the gate, the huge ratchets that brake the drums loosen, and the guide shoes engage.

They've almost reached the gate when Iason sees it slide into its railings. Riki, oblivious with pain and exhaustion, lets Iason push him outside, and then the gate crashes down with an ear-splitting scream.

xxx

When Riki opens his eyes, he sees Guy's face. Dirty, covered in blood. Marked by pain. Riki wants to cry when he reaches out to touch Guy. His heart jumps when he realises that Guy is breathing, the pulse at his neck beating, if only just. Riki drags himself up and turns.

Iason, sitting in front of the gate with his uniform jacket across his knees, looks at him. "Go," he orders, his voice oddly tight. "Find Katze."

"But-" Riki breaks off when he sees the blood on Iason's jacket. On his side. And ugly, rusty patches spreading fast where his legs should be. The colour drains from Riki's face.

"Riki," Iason says, more urgently. "Move!"

xxx

Riki can't remember how he managed to drag Guy into the battered van. The earth is shaking under his feet while Dana Bahn is rocked by detonations underground. Guy has riddled the place with enough explosives to blow it into oblivion. Riki slams the back of the van shut and sets off across the old road towards Ceres.

Katze meets him halfway. He listens, staring past Riki at the column of black smoke, fire and sand that's beginning to lick up into the clear blue sky. Absentmindedly, he takes the tracker that Riki hands him as proof, and when Riki's finished, Katze narrows his eyes and examines the device briefly.

"You left him there?" Katze looks up, nailing Riki with his strange yellow gaze. There is no affection, no compassion. Shocked by the chill in Katze's tone, Riki reads blame, pain and anger.

For a few moments, everything is in balance, before starting to slide.

"Iason said you'd help Guy," Riki says painfully.

"Iason... is dying," Katze replies, tossing the tracker onto the road. He steps on it and grinds it into the dirty concrete with his heel.

Riki wipes across his eyes with his knuckles. He blinks, bites his lip. "You got fags?"

Katze reaches into his coat. Riki follows his movement, too tired to be afraid. His thoughts are with Guy, and his heart hurts. They're a bit with Iason, too, and he feels sorry for Luke and Norris, for Syd and even for Kiri, but most of all for not understanding what happened. Wondering what he's done wrong. How it could come to this, and that now it is too late for almost everything. Katze pulls out a packet of cigarettes, a lighter stuck inside the torn paper wrapper. He taps out the cigarettes – a few white ones, and a couple of Black Moon. He stuffs the white smokes into his coat pocket, puts the Black Moon back and hands the packet to Riki. His face is white and stiff like a mask, only his eyes give him away. They're flat and hard and filled with grief. "Here."

Riki hesitates. He feels like crying. Pleading, begging. But he knows it would be pointless.

"I loved him," Katze says. "All my life, only him."

"And now he's dying for a rat," Riki murmurs.

Katze makes no reply.

xxx

Riki watches him load Guy into the passenger seat of the red roadster and drive off, a trail of dust billowing behind him. He climbs into the old van and starts on the way back to Dana Bahn. His middle hurts, but it doesn't matter.

Blood has spread in a large pool around Iason. He is ashen but conscious, with deep shadows under his eyes. Riki shivers when he thinks that perhaps he can't pass out like an ordinary man, and that he's watching himself die like that.

Iason's gaze, clouded with pain, clears for a few seconds when Riki settles next to him. Disappointment, then sadness and resignation wash over his face. "Riki..."

Riki peels the Black Moon from their scrunched paper packet. He puts one between his lips and lights up. Iason takes it from him. "Go back."

Riki shakes his head. He is sure that Katze will not forgive, and that means there's nowhere for him and Guy to go. He picks the last Black Moon and turns his head to touch the tip of it to Iason's cigarette. Iason raises his arm and draws Riki close. Riki lets him. He balls up the paper and tosses it onto the yellow sand. His eyes drift shut as he sucks the smoke deep into his lungs.

Smoking in long, calm pulls, Iason listens to Riki's dying breath as around them Dana Bahn explodes into a raging inferno. _Not long now, _he thinks, and then he starts feeling light and tired, and when the flames wash over him at last, he feels nothing.

xxx

**THE END**

**You might like to read ANK Red Cat 2 and 3 (Stripes and Tail).**


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